Career
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. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, it was while serving in the United States Army during and just after World World War II, that Cheatham played in the 173rd Army Ground Force Band. The Sweet Baby Blues Band played Kansas City style blues.
Their album Luv in the Afternoon was voted blues album of the year in a 1991 critics poll in Down Beat magazine.
Cheatham also taught jazz at Bennington College in Vermont and at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. 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 East. H. Seigfried, and drummer Vikas Srivastava.
Cheatham died in San Diego, California, in January 2007 following heart surgery, at the age of 82.