Cliff began piano lessons at age 6. While still in elementary school he was winning city wide piano competitions in Houston. During secondary school he continued his classical focus playing concertos by Beethoven, Mozart and Rachmaninoff, but also expanded into other genres such as ragtime. While still in high school he formed a Dixieland group, the Rampart Street Rogues, which achieved local acclaim playing nightly in Houston’s busy club district.
At Rice University Cliff formed and directed the college big jazz band and was the musical director and arranger for the school’s theatre program. He formed a jazz trio that played for many local events. Cliff took a relative break from music to become a physician; he remains in clinical practice. Cliff re-entered the music world via classical chamber music. In 2009 he recorded his first CD, joining with We Three Strings on the Brahms A Major Piano Quartet. He continues to perform major chamber works at recitals of the Colorado Chamber Music Society and elsewhere.
Cliff began his more serious study of jazz piano in 2003 receiving regular lessons from Denver greats Jeff Jenkins and Justin Adams. In 2012 he began composing classical, jazz and some folk music, while performing jazz with the Colorado Jazz Workshop. His jazz pieces have been a regular feature of these concerts. In 2020 Cliff produced a CD of his original jazz entitled Wanderings. Cliff has formed his own group, Jazz Peace. Their performance trajectory has been limited by the COVID pandemic but some audio and video recordings are available.