Cliff Leeman

Clifford " Cliff" Leeman ( born September 10, 1913 in Portland ( Maine), † April 26, 1986 in New York City ) was a drummer of swing and Dixieland.

Leeman had 13 years performed as a drummer with the Portland Symphony Orchestra and recorded in the late 1920s in vaudeville xylophone. 1936 to 1939 he was the drummer of Artie Shaw, 1939 at Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet in 1940-1943 and 1943/44, with Woody Herman. After he was drafted into military service for a short time, he played with Don Byas, John Kirby (1944 /45), Raymond Scott ( 1944) and Jimmy Dorsey (1945 ).

He then took a break until he got in 1947 at Casa Loma Orchestra Glen Gray. In 1949 he was back with Charlie Barnet and 1949/50, in the big band by Bob Chester. In the 1950s he worked extensively for radio and television productions, but also in the Club by Eddie Condon in New York and with Bobby Hackett ( 1949 to 1952 ). He played in the Lawson - Haggart band, with Wild Bill Davison (1962), the Dukes of Dixieland (1963 /64), Peanuts Hucko (1964 ), toured with Eddie Condon in Australia and Japan and played with Bob Crosby. In the 1970s he played with the World's Greatest Jazz Band (1976 /77) and, inter alia, Jimmy McPartland and Joe Venuti.