ONE OF my favorite interviews in a decade of writing columns came in November 2005 when Jeannie Cheatham had her autobiography coming out and I reached her by phone at her home in San Diego. Cheatham’s book – “Meet Me with Your Black Drawers On: My Life in Music” – was a rollicking and candid account of the life that made her a living legend in jazz and blues circles.
I had phoned because Cheatham and her husband, bass trombonist and bandleader Jimmy Cheatham, spent much of the 1970s in Madison. Jimmy’s teaching job at UW-Madison brought them to town, and they established their presence with regular jam sessions at the Inn on the Park on the Capitol Square.
…the Cheathams’ Madison friends have scheduled a memorial jazz jam session to honor Jimmy…the founder and director of the Experimental Improvisational Black Music Ensemble, which continues today under the direction of professor Richard Davis.