Dave Cliff
Encyclopedia
Career
David John “Dave” Cliff was born in HexhamHexham
Hexham is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, located south of the River Tyne, and was the administrative centre for the Tynedale district from 1974 to 2009. The three major towns in Tynedale were Hexham, Prudhoe and Haltwhistle, although in terms of population, Prudhoe was...
, Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
. He began his career playing rhythm and blues in the Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
area. In 1967, he moved to Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
and gained a diploma in jazz studies from Leeds College of Music
Leeds College of Music
Leeds College of Music, located in Leeds’ Quarry Hill cultural quarter, is the largest music college in the United Kingdom, with over 1,000 full-time and 1,000 part-time students. The college is best known for its leading role in jazz education and started one of the first jazz degrees in Europe...
while studying with bassist Peter Ind
Peter Ind
Peter Ind is a British jazz double-bassist and record producer.Ind began playing professionally in the late 1940s, including being part of the 'house band' on the ship Queen Mary from 1949 to 1951. He relocated to New York City in 1951, where he played with Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz , Buddy...
and Bernie Cash.
In 1971, after moving to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
Cliff became established on the local scene. During 1976-1977 he toured Holland, Denmark, Italy and the UK with the Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz
Lee Konitz is an American jazz composer and alto saxophonist born in Chicago, Illinois.Generally considered one of the driving forces of Cool Jazz, Konitz has also performed successfully in bebop and avant-garde settings...
- Warne Marsh
Warne Marsh
Warne Marion Marsh was an American tenor saxophonist born in Los Angeles.-Biography:Marsh came from an affluent background: his father was the cinematographer Oliver T. Marsh , and his mother Elizabeth was a violinist...
Quintet. The following year Cliff toured the UK with Soprano Summit (Kenny Davern
Kenny Davern
Kenny Davern , born John Kenneth Davern, was one of the premier jazz clarinetists of his generation.-Biography:He was born in Huntington, Long Island to a family of mixed Jewish and Irish-Catholic ancestry...
and Bob Wilber
Bob Wilber
Bob Wilber is an internationally recognized American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist and band leader living in Chipping Campden, England. Although his scope covers a wide range of jazz, Wilber has been a dedicated advocate of classic styles, working throughout his career to present traditional jazz...
). He worked increasingly as a freelance from the 1980s on.
His first album under his own name, The Right Time, was recorded in 1987. It featured Geoff Simkins
Geoff Simkins
Geoff Simkins is a British jazz musician who plays alto saxophone.-Career:Geoff Simkins started playing jazz in his early teens. His first instrument was drums, but he quickly changed to the alto saxophone...
on alto, and was the first of a number of albums with Simkins, with whom Cliff has collaborated extensively.
Cliff has appeared frequently at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club is a jazz club which has operated in London since 1959.The club opened on 30 October 1959 in a basement at 39 Gerrard Street in London's Soho district. It was managed by musicians Ronnie Scott and Pete King. In 1965 it moved to a larger venue nearby at 47 Frith Street...
in varied settings including Georgie Fame
Georgie Fame
Georgie Fame is a British rhythm and blues and jazz singer and keyboard player. The one-time rock and roll tour musician, who had a string of 1960s hits, is still a popular performer, often working with contemporaries such as Van Morrison and Bill Wyman.-Early life:Fame took piano lessons from the...
's Blue Flames, Mike Carr Trio, Irene Reid
Irene Reid
Irene Reid was an American jazz singer.Reid was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia. She sang in church and in high school in Georgia, and moved to New York City in 1947 after her mother died. Toward the end of 1947, she tied out for an amateur contest at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and won the...
, the Dick Pearce Sextet and the Bruce Adams Quartet. He has worked extensively with visiting American musicians, including Slide Hampton
Slide Hampton
Locksley Wellington "Slide" Hampton is an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.He was a 1998 Grammy Award winner for "Best Jazz Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist", as arranger for "Cotton Tail" performed by Dee Dee Bridgewater...
, Nina Simone
Nina Simone
Eunice Kathleen Waymon , better known by her stage name Nina Simone , was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music...
, Kenny Davern
Kenny Davern
Kenny Davern , born John Kenneth Davern, was one of the premier jazz clarinetists of his generation.-Biography:He was born in Huntington, Long Island to a family of mixed Jewish and Irish-Catholic ancestry...
, George Masso
George Masso
George Masso , born in Cranston, Rhode Island, is an American jazz trombonist, bandleader, vibraphonist and composer specializing in swing and Dixieland styles. Masso is most notable for his work from 1948-1950 in the Jimmy Dorsey band...
, Spike Robinson
Spike Robinson
Henry Berthold "Spike" Robinson was a tenor saxophonist. He began playing at age twelve, making recordings with famous jazz and bop musicians on several labels including Discovery, Hep and Concord. However, he sought an engineering degree and followed that profession on a fulltime basis for nearly...
, Herb Geller
Herb Geller
Herb Geller , is an American jazz saxophonist, composer and arranger.His musical abilities could have been inherited from his mother, Francis. She worked at the Hollywood neighbourhood cinemas playing piano, accompanying silent movies...
, Lanny Morgan
Lanny Morgan
Lanny Morgan is an American jazz alto saxophonist chiefly active on the West Coast jazz scene.Morgan was raised in Los Angeles. In the 1950s he played with Charlie Barnet, Si Zentner, Terry Gibbs, and Bob Florence, then did a stint in the U.S. military, for which reason he had to turn down an...
, Harry Allen
Harry Allen (musician)
Harry Allen is an American jazz tenor saxophonist born in Washington, D.C.. Early on he was recognized in high school as an exceptional talent being able to uncannily play tunes such as Body and Soul in the style of legendary tenor players Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Flip Phillips, or Sam Donahue...
, Buddy Childers
Buddy Childers
Marion "Buddy" Childers became famous in 1942 at the age of 16, when Stan Kenton hired him to be the lead trumpet in his band.As Childers later told Steve Voce:...
, Lew Tabackin
Lew Tabackin
Lew Tabackin is a jazz flautist and a tenor saxophonist. He is married to Toshiko Akiyoshi, who is a jazz pianist and a composer/arranger.-Biography:...
, Mundell Lowe
Mundell Lowe
Mundell Lowe is an American jazz guitarist.Lowe was born in Laurel, Mississippi on 21 March 1922. In the 1930s he played country music and Dixieland jazz. He later played with big bands and orchestras, and on television in New York City. In the 1960s, Lowe composed music for films and television...
, Bucky Pizzarelli
Bucky Pizzarelli
John Paul "Bucky" Pizzarelli is an American Jazz guitarist and banjoist, and the father of jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli and upright bassist Martin Pizzarelli. Pizzarelli has also worked for NBC as a staffman for Dick Cavett and also ABC with Bobby Rosengarden in...
, Jack McDuff
Jack McDuff
"Brother" Jack McDuff was an American jazz organist and organ trio bandleader who was most prominent during the hard bop and soul jazz era of the 1960s, often performing with an organ trio.-Career:...
, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Richie Cole
Richie Cole (musician)
Richie Cole is a jazz alto saxophonist composer and arranger born in Trenton, New Jersey, U.S. and is a graduate of Ewing High School, Ewing New Jersey....
, and Ken Peplowski
Ken Peplowski
Ken Peplowski is a jazz clarinetist born in Cleveland, Ohio, known primarily for playing in the swing music idiom. He is sometimes compared to Benny Goodman in terms of tone and virtuosity...
.
In 1998 Cliff won the BT Jazz Awards in the guitar category.
Influences
Cliff’s influences on guitar include Charlie ChristianCharlie Christian
Charles Henry "Charlie" Christian was an American swing and jazz guitarist.Christian was an important early performer on the electric guitar, and is cited as a key figure in the development of bebop and cool jazz. He gained national exposure as a member of the Benny Goodman Sextet and Orchestra...
and Wes Montgomery
Wes Montgomery
John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...
, and he has also been extensively influenced by the Lennie Tristano
Lennie Tristano
Leonard Joseph Tristano was a jazz pianist, composer and teacher of jazz improvisation. He performed in the cool jazz, bebop, post bop and avant-garde jazz genres. He remains a somewhat overlooked figure in jazz history, but his enormous originality and dazzling work as an improviser have long...
school, whose influence he encountered when working and studying with Peter Ind.
Teaching
Cliff is involved in Jazz education, teaching jazz guitar at London Trinity College of MusicTrinity College of Music
Trinity College of Music is one of the London music conservatories, based in Greenwich. It is part of Trinity Laban.The conservatoire is inheritor of elegant riverside buildings of the former Greenwich Hospital, designed in part by Sir Christopher Wren...
, The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama & Birmingham Conservatoire. cliff also teaches at the Glamorgan Summer jazz school, the Jamie Aebersold Summer School in London and at the Christiansand jazz course in Norway.
Selected recordings
- With Geoff SimkinsGeoff SimkinsGeoff Simkins is a British jazz musician who plays alto saxophone.-Career:Geoff Simkins started playing jazz in his early teens. His first instrument was drums, but he quickly changed to the alto saxophone...
:- The Right Time (LP)
- West Coast Blues (MC)
- Sipping At Bells (CD)
- The Music of Tadd DameronTadd DameronTadley Ewing Peake "Tadd" Dameron was an American jazz composer, arranger and pianist. Saxophonist Dexter Gordon called Dameron the "romanticist" of the bop movement, while reviewer Scott Yanow writes that Dameron was the "definitive arranger/composer of the bop era".-Biography:Born in Cleveland,...
(CD)
- With Allan GanleyAllan GanleyAllan Ganley was a respected English jazz drummer and arranger, who played with many famous names....
and Geoff Simkins:- Live at the Station
- With Phil DeGreg:
- Tranzatlantic Interplay
- With Bruce Adams:
- Always and Forever
- Live at Ronnie Scott’s