Jimmy Cheatham

Jimmy Cheatham (June 18, 1924 in Birmingham, Alabama - January 12, 2007 in San Diego, California) was a jazz trombonist and teacher who played with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton and Ornette Coleman. In 1978, Cheatham was invited to head the jazz program at University of California, San Diego and in 1979 he was appointed head of the African American and jazz performance programme there. He retired in 2005.

While serving in the United States Army during and just after World War II Cheatham played in the 173rd Army Ground Force Band.

Cheatham met his wife, Jean Evans, in 1956 in Buffalo, New York, when the local musicians' union chief called them separately to replace two musicians who could not make a job at the local Elks Ballroom. They married in 1959.

In the mid-1980s Cheatham formed The Sweet Baby Blues Band with his wife. The Sweet Baby Blues Band played Kansas City-style blues. Cheatham's Sweet Baby Blues album won a French Grand Prix du Disque. Their album "Luv in the Afternoon" was voted blues album of the year in a 1991 critics poll in Down Beat.

Cheatham also taught jazz at Bennington College in Vermont and at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Cheatham's legacy is carried on by several students who went on to become, like him, prominent composer/performer/educators: flutist Nicole Mitchell, bassist Karl E. H. Seigfried, and drummer Vikas Srivastava.

Discography

* 1966 "The Dealer" - Chico Hamilton (arranger and conductor)
* 1984 "Sweet Baby Blues"
* 1985 "Midnight Mama" (Concord)
* 1987 "Homeward Bound" (Concord)
* 1988 "Back to the Neighborhood" (Concord)
* 1990 "Luv in the Afternoon" (Concord)
* 1991 "Basket Full of Blues" (Concord)
* 1993 "Blues and the Boogie Masters" (Concord)

External links

* [http://www.jeanniecheatham.com Official Web Site For Jeannie and Jimmy Cheatham]