JEANNIE CHEATHAM
Jeannie Cheatham
HONORARY MEMBER #2
WOMEN IN JAZZ SOUTH FLORIDA, INC.
Born
August 1927, in Akron, OH, Jeannie Cheatham is a pianist, composer and author
of Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On. Her musical style was shaped
in the church choir. She began piano lessons, when she was five and went
on to play in the school band. She and Jimmy Cheatham taught at the
Jimmy
Cheatham retired as Professor Emeritus status, in 1993, from the
Jimmy taught Improvisation and Black Music History and was the Director of
UCSD’s Jazz Program during his active teaching years. Over the years, he
has played bass trombone with Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Thad Jones
and Ornette Coleman, and was Musical Director for Chico Hamilton. He
arranges all the songs for the Sweet Baby Blues Band and co-writes with
his wife, Jeannie, most of their original songs.
Jeannie performed with Big Mama Thornton off and on for ten years. She was
featured with Thornton and Sippie Wallace in the award-winning PBS
television special “Three Generations of the Blues.” In 1984, she
toured with Cab Calloway. Prior to that, she was on the road accompanying
blues greats such as T-Bone Walker, Joe Williams, Al Hibbler, Dinah
Washington, Odetta and Jimmy Witherspoon. In 1990, she appeared with
Marian McPartland on the popular radio series Piano Jazz. She is a most
clever lyric writer, a gifted pianist and a delightful singer.
The Cheathams toured
Jeannie and Jimmy Cheatham and the Sweet Baby Blues Band performed
at Long Beach Blues Festival and Long Beach Jazz Festival, San
Francisco Blues Festival, Playboy Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival,
Chicago Jazz Festival and Fujitsu Concord Jazz Festival. They appeared in
a jazz festival in
The couple played to packed houses at Catalina’s and Birdland West in
Los Angeles and Long Beach, Horton Grand in San Diego, Great American
Music Hall and Kimball’s East in the San Francisco area, Jazz Alley in
Seattle and Four Queens in Las Vegas.
“Sweet Baby Blues” (CCD-4358), their debut album on the Concord Jazz
label, was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque de Jazz, the French equivalent
of a Grammy. This album of classic blues and Cheatham originals, including
their own “Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On,” has become a blues
classic. “Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On” has been recorded by
several other artists, including the Dirty Dozen Brass Band; has been
quoted in the 1992 book “Cooler by the
The success of their first album brought about six other recordings,
featuring at
least one special guest:.
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“Midnight Mama” (CCD-4297)
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“Homeward Bound” (CCD-4321)
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“Back to the Neighborhood” (CCD-4373)
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“Luv in the Afternoon” (CCD-4429)
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“Basket Full of Blues” (CCD-4501)
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“Blues and the Boogie Masters (CCD-4579)
Alto sax great Hank Crawford and the extraordinary trumpeter Snooky Young
play on several cuts on “Blues and the Boogie Masters.”
“Luv” was voted Blues Album of the Year in Down Beat’s 1991
Critics’ Poll, and “Basket Full of Blues” was named on Jazzscene of
Oregon Critics’ Poll of 1992. They also won the JazzTimes 1990
Critics’ Poll Blues Group award. In 1991, the band appeared on “Club
Date,” a PBS television program that is still being aired across the
The band delighted Johnny Carson on “The Tonight
Show” that closed the 1988 series. Jeannie was nominated, in 1988
and 1993, by the W.C. Handy Blues Music Awards for Traditional Female
Artist of the Year. In 1989, “Back to the Neighborhood” was nominated
for a Handy Award. “Blues Like Jay McShann” was
nominated by the W.C. Handy Blues Music Award Committee for Song of the
Year in 1992.
Jimmy passed away in 2006, the same year of the death of their son.
Jeanie Cheatham is one of the most authentic blues vocalists/pianists
alive today. With Jimmy Cheatham’s “shouting bass trombone and aptly
tailored arrangements,” Jeannie reigns as the new
Queen of the Blues.
The motto of the Sweet Baby Blues Band is “Nobody goes home feeling
bad.” And nobody does.