Cliff Leeman
b. 10 September 1913, Portland, Maine, USA, d. 26 April 1986. After playing in the percussion section of a local symphony orchestra, Leeman turned to danceband and jazz drumming as a career. In 1936, he joined Artie Shaw, playing an important role in the band's swing era success story. After leaving Shaw, he played in several leading big bands, including those led by Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet and Woody Herman. In the late '40s, as the big bands became fewer, Leeman played in many small groups along New York's 52nd Street, returning briefly to big band work whenever opportunities were offered. In the '50s he worked in the studios but continued to play in jazz groups, usually those with a traditional bent. During this and the following decade he worked with Big Joe Turner, (appearing on the singer's classic BOSS OF THE BLUES), Eddie Condon, Ralph Sutton (with whom he recorded a duo album, I GOT RHYTHM), Wild Bill Davison, Yank Lawson and Bob Haggart. In the '70s he toured extensively, including a trip to Japan with Condon and an all-star band that featured Buck Clayton, Pee Wee Russell and Jimmy Rushing. Leeman also recorded with Bobby Hackett, Bud Freeman, Don Ewell, Joe Venuti, Zoot Sims and Lawson and Haggart's group, the World's Greatest Jazz Band. A powerful yet self-effacing big band drummer and a subtly encouraging small group player, Leeman's work was always exemplary. In the dixieland bands, with which he spent many of his later years, he played with zesty enthusiasm. In all of these settings his playing maintained a standard which should have eclipsed many of his better-known contemporaries. Sadly, he was the one who was often overshadowed and he remains one of the unsung heroes of jazz drumming.