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Famous Like Me > Actor > C > Doc Cheatham

Profile of Doc Cheatham on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Doc Cheatham  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 13th June 1905
   
Place of Birth: Nashville, Tennessee, USA
   
Profession: Actor
 
 
From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

Adolphus Anthony Cheatham, much better known as Doc Cheatham (13 June 1905 - 2 June 1997) was a jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader. While a reliable player in some of the top jazz groups from the 1920s on, Cheatham's career enjoyed an unusual flowering of renewed creativity and acclaim in his later decades; Doc himself agreed with the critical assessment that he was probably the only jazz musician to create his best work after the age of 70.

Doc Cheatham in 1977. Photo by Jean-Pierre Tahmazian

Cheatham was born in Nashville, Tennessee. He noted there was no jazz music there in his youth; like many in the United States he was introduced to the style by early recordings and touring groups at the end of the 1910s. He abandoned his family's plans for him to be a pharmacist (although retaining the medically inspired nickname "Doc") to play music, initially playing soprano and tenor saxophone in addition to trumpet in Nashville's African American Vaudeville theater. His early jazz influences included Henry Busse and Johnny Dunn, but when he moved to Chicago in 1924 he heard King Oliver. Oliver's playing was a revelation to Cheatham. Cheatham followed the jazz King around, and treasured and performed with a mute which Oliver gave the young Cheatham for the rest of his career. A further revelation came the following year when Louis Armstrong returned to Chicago. Armstrong would be a lifelong influence on Cheatham.

Cheatham played in Albert Wynn's band (and occasionally substituted for Armstrong at the Vendome Theater), and recorded on sax with Ma Rainey before moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1927, where he worked with the bands of Bobby Lee and Wilber de Paris before moving to New York City the following year. After a short stint with Chick Webb he left to tour Europe with Sam Wooding's band.

Cheatam returned to the United States in 1930, and played with Marion Handy and McKinney's Cotton Pickers before landing a job with Cab Calloway. Cheatham was Calloway's lead trumpeter from 1932 through 1939.

He performed with Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, Fletcher Henderson, and Claude Hopkins in the 1940s; after World War II he started working regularly with Latin bands in New York City, including the bands of Perez Prado, Marcelino Guerra, Ricardo Rey, Machito, and others. In addition to continuing Latin gigs, he played again with Wilbur de Paris and Sammy Price. He led his own band on Broadway for five years starting in 1960, after which he toured with Benny Goodman.

In the 1970s, Doc Cheatham made a vigourous self-assessment to improve his playing, including taping himself and critically listening to himself, then endeavoring to eliminate all clichés from his playing. The discipline paid off, and Doc received ever-improving critical attention.

His singing career began almost by accident in a Paris recording studio on 2 May 1977. As a level and microphone check at the start of a recording session with Sammy Price's band, Doc sang and scatted his way through a couple of choruses of "What Can I Say Dear After I Say I'm Sorry". The miking happened to be good from the start and the tape machine was already rolling, and the track was issued on the LP "Doc Cheatham: Good For What Ails You". His singing was well received and Doc continued to sing in addition to play music for the rest of his career.

Doc toured widely in addition to his regular gig leading the band at Sweet Basil's in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in his final decade. During one of his frequent trips to New Orleans, Louisiana he met and befriended young trumpet virtuoso Nicholas Payton. In 1996 the two trumpeters recorded a CD for Verve Records which won them a Grammy Award.

Doc Cheatham continued playing until 2 days before his death, eleven days shy of his 92nd birthday.


This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Doc Cheatham