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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZCHEATHAM, Jimmy and JeanniePianist/blues singer Jean Evans Cheatham and bass trombonist James Cheatham (b 18 June 1924, Birminham AL; d 19 January 2007, San Diego CA) made timeless music together in the Sweet Baby Blues band. They met in 1956 on stage in Buffalo NY, married in '59; she sang in clubs, he sessioned on TV, on Broadway, with Bill Dixon, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Thad Jones, Ornette Coleman, and was music director for Chico Hamilton. She began singing in church in Akron Ohio, studied piano at age five, has accompanied Dinah Washington, Al Hibbler, Jimmy Witherspoon, others. They went to the U. of Wisconsin/Madison '72 and taught in the jazz programme; to West Coast, San Diego '78: he taught at U. of California San Diego (UCSD); retiring in 2005; she was president of the Lower California Jazz Society. They played clubs and organized weekly jam sessions as they've done wherever they were, latterly in the Bahia Hotel. She was seen in PBS TV's Three Generations Of The Blues '83 with Sippie Wallace and Big Mama Thornton. A long overdue record deal, with Concord Jazz, began with Sweet Baby Blues '85 including 'Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On', sidemen including Red Callender and Charles McPherson, often seen at their jam sessions, then Midnight Mama '86 ('Down-the-middle-piano, down-the-decades blues', wrote Leonard Feather); Homeward Bound '87 included Callender, Jimmie Noone Jr, Snooky Young, Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson. From Back The Neighborhood '89 the band was called the Sweet Baby Blues Band, followed by Love In The Afternoon '90, Basket Full Of Blues '92, Blues And The Boogie Masters '93, Gud Nuz Bluz '95 with Plas Johnson. Jimmy Cheatham touched the lives of generations of students, and will not soon be forgotten. |