Clem DeRosa
American jazz musician and bandleader (1925-2011)
Clem DeRosa (né Clement Richard De Rosa; May 20, 1925 – December 20, 2011, in Texas) was an American jazz drummer, composer, arranger, band leader, and influential music educator.
Career highlights
Before World War II, DeRosa performed in the New York City area. He was drafted in the U.S. Army and performed with Glenn Miller Air Corps band. After being discharged, he worked as a professional drummer in 1950s, performing with Charles Mingus (Jazzical Moods, 1954), Marian McPartland, Teo Macero, Teddy Wilson, Thad Jones, Ben Webster, Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Coleman Hawkins, Dennis Sandole, Wally Cirillo (1927–1977), John LaPorta (Conceptions, 1957), Kenyon Hopkins, and Bobby Hackett.
He studied composition at Juilliard. DeRosa earned a Master of Music degree in orchestral conducting from the Manhattan School of Music.
He went on to teach music. In the 1960s, DeRosa was influential in formalizing jazz music education. DeRosa was co-founder and chairman of the National Association of Jazz Educators, the forerunner of the International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE). Through the NAJE, DeRosa taught with the Stan Kenton Clinics where he collaborated with Kenton and other jazz education pioneers, including Gene Hall, and Leon Breeden.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Clem DeRosa” is american jazz musician and bandleader (1925-2011). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Clem, DeRosa and American, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american jazz musician and bandleader (1925-2011)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1099833. VIAF identifies the subject as 66099412. The Library of Congress control number is no99006325. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 2011, 1954 and 1927.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Clem DeRosa”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Clem DeRosa primary sources, Clem DeRosa archive and Clem research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Clem DeRosa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.