Rupert Clemendore
“Timing – Tuning – Imagination – Swing!“
In my opinion Rupert Clemendore was one of the greatest drummers on the planet. He came from Trinidad to Sweden on tour and stayed here for the rest of his life. He was a master of the congas and of the regular drum kit. During the sixties he played a lot at the Golden Circle in Stockholm with Johnny Griffin, Lou Bennet, George Russel and others and then with Jan Johansson’s quartet but after Johansson’s sad death in a car crash he restricted himself to playing for dance classes at the Ballet Academy, often together with Davor Kajfes.
It is indeed a great thing that Nils Edström recorded two full nights at the Golden Circle with Lou Bennet on the Hammond B3, André Condoant from Guadalope on guitar and Rupert Clemendore on drums.
On January 16 2026 we release the first of the two nights they played at the Golden Circle, the repertoire are all standards and we are luckily treated with four or eight bar trading in almost every song where Clemendore’s imagination and timing is stunning!
Here is a video that George Russell did in Sweden where Clemendore plays his tumbas and has a big solo in the first number:
Rupert Clemendore was born 1925 in Trinidad where he grew up and became an important musician in the fifties. He created the local Patois Jazz style as drummer and multiinstrumentalist. Around 1960 he came to Sweden where he stayed till his death in 2005.
