Drum Solo in the style of Cliff Leeman, Swing Era Great

Here's an attempt to play a solo in the style of one of my favorite drummers, the great Cliff Leeman. He first came to prominence in the Swing Era with Artie Shaw and Charlie Barnett, among others. Like many of his generation, I think he only got better with age. In fact, my favorite period of his career is from the 1950s to the 1970s. In this video I was especially thinking about the fantastic live recordings he made in the late sixties with Ralph Sutton, Bob Wilber and Al Hall. Cliff mostly plays brushes on those recordings (which is a lesson in itself), but occasionally switches to sticks. His playing is equally driving regardless.
Cliff was the ultimate ensemble drummer and rarely took a solo longer than four bars. When he did take a more extended solo, it was usually a "time" solo like this; staying mostly on the ride cymbal and playing little fills around his basic timekeeping pattern. He would sometimes put accents and phrases in unexpected places. This solo is four blues choruses with a little tag at the end.
If anyone would like to learn more about Cliff Leeman, here are a couple of other videos I made about him, talking more about his style and setup and also recommending a number of his recordings:
• Cliff Leeman's drummin...
• Cliff Leeman's Slinger...
I highly recommend listening to Cliff Leeman, a true original and an incredibly swinging drummer!
Thanks to everyone who has subscribed!
www.kevindorn.com
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[@dretety1]

Good have you back

[@letisauselo3369]

Great as always!

[@kennethtaylor964]

Slick 😊

[@aberration3869]

Cool

[@swingyoucats]

Sounds very real to me (but not imitative) and I heard Cliff in the flesh!

[@bernardflegar8017]

Bravo, Kevin!!!

[@kevindorn]

Thanks, Bernard!

[@andiedrums1]

I remember you coming for lessons with John Taylor in London. You sound great!

[@kevindorn]

Andie! Great to hear from you and thanks for the kinds words! John was a wonderful teacher and helped me a lot. Hope you're well and all the best to you!

[@paulstuartsmith2224]

Amazing and so enlightening, always!

[@kevindorn]

Thank you, Paul!

[@jaydenk7435]

Excellent - sounds great on the home audio system👍

[@robertstein2101]

Great job Kevin!

[@kevindorn]

Thanks, Robert!

[@letisauselo3369]

You're fantastic!

[@kevindorn]

@@letisauselo3369 Thank you, Leti!

[@PiotrBarcz]

Nice! I can see you were mouthing something while you were playing, are you muttering a melody to yourself or counting beats maybe? I've seen a lot of drummers do that and it's got me curious (because I don't do it xD)

[@kevindorn]

I'm either singing what I'm playing or some sort of counter line. I find it to be very helpful.

[@PiotrBarcz]

@@kevindorn indeed! Oscar Peterson did the same thing, you can hear him mumbling everything he plays which is really interesting. The mind to hands bridge!

[@kevindorn]

@@PiotrBarcz Like the old expression: If you can say it, you can play it :)

[@PiotrBarcz]

@@kevindorn True that!

[@cheeksoffire]

Mr. Dorn

[@handler803]

Just noticed that youre using a no tom setup here. Well done.

[@kevindorn]

Thanks! Jake Hanna was a big influence on me in that regard.