Dwarves, hobbits, maybe even orcs, all seem to follow the Tolkienesque model in White Box and later editions of the game, but Mr. Gygax definitely went outside Middle Earth for inspiration for his elves. With an average height of 5' (5'-6" max in AD&D) that alone indicates they aren't any Noldor present in this milieu. In AD&D, Mr. Gygax talks about grey elves and high elves, wood elves and aquatic elves and even mentions the legendary "Drow", or black elves. Player characters are stated as being mostly high elves.
The elven abilities in Chainmail (which groups them together with fairies) includes becoming invisible as well as seeing invisible, can perform split moving and firing, and are frequently armed with magic weapons (swords & bows). At this point the connection between what he calls "fairies" and Gygaxian elves is obvious. White Box gives elves the unique ability to alternately act as fighting men and magic users and an increase ability to spot hidden doors, suggesting they are generally more observant.
White Box includes other "fairies" such as brownies, pixies and sprites, not as player character races, but as part of the milieu to be encountered. The world of "fairie" is obviously known to Mr. Gygax and included in the game and it seems game elves are a part of that tradition rather than Tolkien. The inspiration for elves, what the designer had in mind when he included elves, can be helpful in knowing how to run an elf character. White Box is largely a do-it-yourself approach to gaming and the milieu of setting is only loosely implied by character class, monster list, playable races, and magic system, but having said that, playing an elf as a member of fairie seems consistent with the implied setting. Fairie, fairy, faerie or however one spells it has roots in English folklore and examples appear in numerous sources from the Andrew Lang Fairy Books (various colours) to Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword.
More modern role-players may draw their conceptual thinking about elves from World of Warcraft or other sources as elves have become a staple of role-playing in all its forms. Regardless of system, dwarves seem to be dwarves and hobbits, even when renamed halflings (despite undersized feet in 5th Ed.) remain hobbits. Pathfinder elves are taller than humans, despite otherwise resembling TSR elves. Often the most noticeable differences between game elves are the size of the pointy ears. They range from normal size, but slightly pointy Tolkien ears to the wildly exaggerated WOW ears. Size of ear shouldn't affect how elves are role-played too much. Where one draws their inspiration from probably has more effect on how one plays their elf, hence the legions of noble, good-hearted Drow I have encountered over the years, so many in fact that one might think that was the normal state of Drow to be kind, honest creatures and good adventuring companions. It's starting to feel like this post is becoming too long, so let's end it with the original observation, that elves seem to come in lots of flavors, more so than other non-human races.
Oh, wait, what about those Elric - Melniboneans...aren't they elves?
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