{"id":134419,"date":"2025-08-10T13:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T13:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/134419\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T13:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T13:20:10","slug":"im-busy-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/134419\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m busy!\u2019 \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeannie Cheatham has several good reasons she isn\u2019t paying much attention to her impending 98th birthday on Thursday. \u201cI\u2019m busy!\u201d she said, adding with a chuckle: \u201cMy 100th birthday will be the big one for me to celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n

True to her word, this seemingly tireless San Diego dynamo is at work on several fronts. Topping the list is her quest to make an audio version of her heralded 2006 University of Texas Press-published autobiography, \u201cMeet Me With Your Black Drawers On: My Life In Music.\u201d<\/p>\n

That musical life began when she did her first paid gig \u2014 at the age of 4 \u2014 playing keyboards at a church in her Ohio hometown of Akron. She went on to collaborate with such vital American music standouts as Cab Calloway, Bo Diddley, T-Bone Walker, Odetta, Jay McShann, Big Mama Thornton, Johnny Ray and a good number more.<\/p>\n

The first part of her book\u2019s title is drawn from the signature song that she wrote for the international award-winning \u201cSweet Baby Blues.\u201d It was the 1985 debut album by pianist-vocalist Jeannie, her bass trombone-playing husband, Jimmy, and their ebullient Sweet Baby Blues Band. The couple made seven additional albums for Concord Records with the brassy ensemble, which the Cheathams co-led until Jimmy\u2019s death in 2007 at the age of 82.<\/p>\n

\"JimmyJimmy and Jeannie Cheatham pose with a four-legged friend for a 1996 photo shoot for Southern California Dog Magazine. (Meredith French)
\n\u2018Christmas-song staple\u2019<\/p>\n

Jeannie doesn\u2019t perform in public anymore, although she still has a keyboard, writes poems and often sings in her University City-area home. She is considering penning a new book, specifically about the musicians who played in the Sweet Baby Blues Band\u2019s various lineups.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe guys who were in the band, all of them were pretty special,\u201d she said. \u201cSome died, some lived, and all of them were of service. They would do volunteer work. Each one of them helped people.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the possibility of a new book will have to wait, at least for now. A bigger priority for Jeannie is looking at options for a new recording of \u201cAn Apple, An Orange and a Little Stick Doll.\u201d She wrote and sang the blues- and country-tinged ballad, which was recorded by the Sweet Baby Blues Band for the all-star 2003 compilation album, \u201cA Concord Jazz Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t want to do an old traditional Christmas song, so I wrote a new one and Jimmy did arrangements for French horns,\u201d Jeannie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe song has 74,000 streams on Spotify and I don\u2019t even know who put the song up there. I\u2019m not computer-smart, so it shocked me. My daughter Shirley, who is 74, found it on Spotify and told me about it. I\u2019m seeing if we can do a new video version, so people could buy it every year. I think it could become a Christmas-song staple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeannie also wants to explore having all the Sweet Baby Blues Band\u2019s albums reissued in physical form and made available for streaming. But Concord Records has undergone several changes of ownership in recent decades and it\u2019s unclear who is now best suited to help her pursue reissues and streaming.<\/p>\n

\u201cUniversal Music Group distributes Concord, but I don\u2019t know how to approach the president of Universal and I\u2019m kind of scared to,\u201d she said. \u201cThe people I knew who used to be at Concord have all died or disappeared, and I can\u2019t sell the records from my house. At my age, when everybody dies, you don\u2019t know who to contact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SippieSippie Wallace, Big Mama Thornton and Jeannie Cheatham are shown in 1986 at the Belly Up in Solana Beach. Their joint concert was filmed for the KPBS-TV special, \u201cThree Generations of the Blues.\u201d (Grace Bell)
\n\u2018Sharp as a tack\u2019<\/p>\n

It is not uncommon for the plucky Jeannie to answer phone calls by declaring: \u201cI\u2019m still alive!\u201d<\/p>\n

That she is keeping so active, nearly a full century after her birth, is startling only to those who don\u2019t know her well.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t surprise me at all. She\u2019s always been very engaged and business savvy,\u201d said top San Diego flutist Holly Hofmann, who cites Jeannie as an early role model.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s totally in character that Jeannie keeps so busy,\u201d agreed close friend and photographer Grace Bell, who shot the cover art for four of the Sweet Baby Blues Band\u2019s albums. \u201cShe is still sharp as a tack and totally engaged,\u201d<\/p>\n

Those sentiments are shared by New York drummer and band leader Sipho Kunene.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt surprises me that anybody would be doing all that at 97 or 98, but because I know Jeannie, no, it doesn\u2019t surprise me,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s full of creative ideas, all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kunene, 66, was a teenager when he befriended the Cheathams in the early 1970s. At the time, both Jimmy and Jeannie were on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where Jimmy taught jazz and Jeannie taught African-American history. Kunene has been overseeing Jeannie\u2019s website, jeanniecheatham.com<\/a>, for the past four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cPretty much all the content is hers,\u201d the drummer said. \u201cShe\u2019ll say what songs and videos she wants on it. Even though she\u2019s not technically minded and doesn\u2019t have a computer, she\u2019s got great instincts. She comes up with solutions to things I hadn\u2019t even thought of!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeannie\u2019s can-do spirit has been a constant since she was a little girl in her native Akron, Ohio, where she was born Jean Elizabeth Evans on Aug. 14, 1927. She took classical piano lessons two hours a day and music quickly became her raison d\u2019etre.<\/p>\n

\"JeannieJeannie Cheatham is 16 in this 1943 photo of her as a soon-to-graduate student at West High School in Akron, Ohio. (Courtesy Marr Sound Archives, University of Missouri)
\nBeethoven, Charlie Parker<\/p>\n

\u201cMy music teacher was an Englishman,\u201d she recalled. \u201cWhen I was 6 or 7, he would take me to White churches and I would play Beethoven. I was comfortable doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was transformed after hearing the 1940 recording of the now classic \u201cAfter Hours\u201d by Erskine Hawkins & His Orchestra. The song was written by Avery Parrish, whose soulful, oh-so-supple piano playing on \u201cAfter Hours\u201d proved foundational for Jeannie.<\/p>\n

\u201cAvery Parrish was the first and only pianist I listened to,\u201d she said. \u201cI would always listen to the trumpet players or saxophonists and try to imitate them. That\u2019s my secret and that\u2019s why I think my piano style is different.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe singers who really moved me were Lee Wiley, who most people have never heard of, and Billie Holiday. I also loved Edith Piaf. She sang in French, but her music touched me. And I cut my teeth on (bebop sax icon) Charlie Parker.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time she was in her early teens, Jeannie was performing with a 12-piece Akron band. She went on to play piano for such esteemed vocal stars as Dinah Washington, Jimmy Witherspoon, Wynonie Harris, Joe Williams, Big Maybelle and Jimmy Rushing. Jeannie later shared the same manager as Ella Fitzgerald.<\/p>\n

She thrived despite encountering racism and sexism as a Black female musician in a decidedly male-dominated field during the still-segregated 1940s and 1950s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey always would say: \u2018Oh, she plays really good \u2014 for a girl\u2019,\u201d Jeannie said. \u201cBut it wasn\u2019t that difficult for me. I tell young women musicians: \u2018Don\u2019t wait for men musicians to hire you \u2014 lead your own band. You hire them. Don\u2019t wait for them to hire you\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeannie spent three years playing with an American band in Toronto. After their last performances on Saturday nights, the group would hurriedly drive 90 miles to Buffalo, N.Y., for a breakfast-jazz set. It was there Jeannie memorably met her husband-to-be, Jimmy, in the mid-1950s.<\/p>\n

\u201cMe and my girlfriend were all dressed up and saw him at a jam session,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI told the barmaid: \u2018Send that guy a drink.\u2019 The barmaid said: \u2018That\u2019s Jimmy Cheatham,\u2019 and walked up to him with a drink on her tray. He said he didn\u2019t want it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told her: \u2018Take it back and tell him to drink it or wear it!\u2019 She did and he laughed and drank it, and that\u2019s how we got together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jimmy Cheatham beamed broadly in a 2006 San Diego Union-Tribune interview as he recalled meeting Jeannie in Buffalo.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was something,\u201d he said. \u201cI remember looking at her across the room and thinking: \u2018Hmmm.\u2019 At intermission, I noticed her positive spirit right away when I joined her at the bar. I saw she was a beautiful human being with a fantastic mind, and I began to observe her a lot more deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n

They married in 1958 and moved two years later to New York City. In between her music gigs, Jeannie studied business management and accounting. Both would later prove invaluable to her when she helped the Sweet Baby Blues Band negotiate the ins and outs of concert and festival bookings, recording contracts and negotiating the group\u2019s 1988 appearances on the Johnny Carson-hosted \u201cTonight Show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jimmy had been a musical arranger for Broadway shows and performed with such jazz giants as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Papa Jo Jones, Ornette Coleman, Lionel Hampton and Chico Hamilton. In 1977, Jimmy accepted a teaching position in the jazz department at UC San Diego. He led the school\u2019s jazz ensemble until his retirement in 2005 and has been cited as a key mentor by two now-prominent former students \u2014 flutist Nicole Mitchell and bassist Mark Dresser.<\/p>\n

\"InIn this 1987 photo of leading San Diego jazz musicians, Jimmy Cheatham is shown at the far left and Jeannie Cheatham is seated at the piano. (Union-Tribune file photo)
\n\u2018They were ebullient!\u2019<\/p>\n

In 1978, Jeannie and Jimmy started their popular weekly Sunday jam sessions, first at the Sheraton Harbor Island, then at the Bahia Hotel. The sessions laid the groundwork for the formation of the Sweet Baby Blues Band in 1993. And the sessions drew enthusiastic audiences, such national jazz stars as pianist Billy Taylor and saxophonists Charles McPherson and Eddie \u201cCleanhead\u201d Vinson, and many eager young musicians, including flutist Hofmann.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeannie was really important in my introduction to the jazz scene in San Diego when I arrived here in the late 1980s,\u201d said Hofmann, who became one of the city\u2019s top jazz curators and concert promoters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the jam sessions, she and I were almost always the only women. I felt a comfort with Jeannie because my musical life, up to that point, had been exclusively with men. She would play chord changes for me that helped me to create on the spot. After I started doing the jazz series at the Horton Grand Hotel in the 1990s, I hired the Cheathams many times and people loved how joyful they and their music were. They were ebullient!\u201d<\/p>\n

That assessment is seconded by the University of Missouri\u2019s Chuck Haddix. He is the curator of the school\u2019s Marr Sound Archives, which in 2009 was gifted with the Jimmy and Jeannie Cheatham Collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cheathams embody the good-time spirit of jazz, swing, boogie-woogie and jump-blues, and audiences adored them,\u201d Haddix said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeannie combines the virtuosity of jazz and the deep feeling of the blues. She has a great history in music and a great respect for the past, but she\u2019s always looking forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Had she decided to be only a pianist or only a singer, Jeannie would still command attention. Her arresting keyboard playing and warm, deeply felt vocals each convey maximum emotion with minimum fuss. And as the heart and soul of The Sweet Baby Blues Band, she was a potent musical force.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe played the Kansas City style, but what we did was also the history of Black music, she said. \u201cI taught it and Jimmy taught it, and the guys in the band had to know how to play it. When I counted in a song by saying \u2018One, two, you know what to do,\u2019 they better know what to do!\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeannie\u2019s commanding presence, on stage and off, is a matter of record.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has an amazing ability to get people together, organize them and have them perform in a beautiful way. She brings out the best in people,\u201d said photographer Bell.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can never under-estimate her at all,\u201d agreed fellow photographer Meredith French, who has also known Jeannie for decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever we did photo shoots with her and Jimmy, she was always the star of the show and Jimmy was happy to oblige. Jeannie always wore red, which was her trademark, for our photo shoots. That was the one thing she insisted on. Otherwise, there were no restrictions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why red?<\/p>\n

\u201cRed is for energy,\u201d Jeannie said. \u201cI found out \u2014 wherever I was \u2014 that when you want to get on stage and raise the energy, you wear red. It\u2019s a happy color.\u201d<\/p>\n

A fan with two medics<\/p>\n

Over the years, Jeannie and Jimmy led the Sweet Baby Blues Band in performances at the Hollywood Bowl, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, France\u2019s Nice Jazz Festival and Japan\u2019s Fujitsu-Concord Jazz Festival. But one of the most memorable came when the group appeared in The Netherlands at the 1987 North Sea Jazz Festival.<\/p>\n

Their 1 a.m. performance drew a boisterous, near-capacity audience despite the fact that they were directly competing against simultaneous concerts by the Modern Jazz Quartet, Michael Brecker, Stanley Jordan, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Roomful of Blues, Woody Shaw and Albert Collins.<\/p>\n

One of the Cheathams\u2019 devoted fans had come straight from the hospital. He was in the center of the audience, on a wheeled stretcher, carefully attended by two medics. The ailing man was in no condition to give a quote to this reporter, but he visibly enjoyed the music.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he had one of his arms hanging above him in traction!\u201d Jeannie recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of the highlights of our career and it still gives me the chills. It reminds me that music is magic and it raises a vibration. When we get on stage, we\u2019re all happy to see each other and we know something good will happen, and it does. I\u2019ll never forget that night at the North Sea Jazz Festival as long as I live.\u201d<\/p>\n

And how long might that be?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, but right now I\u2019ve got several balls in the air,\u201d Jeannie said. \u201cYou want to know how I feel at nearly 98? I don\u2019t feel no different than I did at 28. My mother lived to be 102 and my grandmother lived to be 107. So, I\u2019m keeping busy. I\u2019m not sitting around.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeannie Cheatham has several good reasons she isn\u2019t paying much attention to her impending 98th birthday on Thursday.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":134420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,171,1370,5424,3549,3550,7264,1072,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-134419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-music-and-concerts","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-san-diego-county","16":"tag-sandiego","17":"tag-things-to-do","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115004678967061625","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}