Since the middle of the 1950s, Jimmy and Jeannie Cheatham have worked as a musical team, having married toward the close of that decade. Her lively and upbeat singing pairs with his warm trombone lines and support on a string of strong Concord releases from the 1980s and 1990s. Their shared path started after an onstage meeting in Buffalo in the 1950s. Jeannie Cheatham had already played club dates by then, while Jimmy Cheatham had worked in Broadway bands and on television as well as alongside Bill Dixon, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Thad Jones, and Ornette Coleman; he had also served as music director for Chico Hamilton. Having taken up piano as a child, Jeannie later backed Dinah Washington, Al Hibbler, and Jimmy Witherspoon, among others. During the 1970s the pair studied at the University of Wisconsin and taught in the jazz program there before settling in San Diego in the late 1970s. Jimmy taught at the University of California while Jeannie served as president of the Lower California Jazz Society. The couple kept busy in clubs and launched weekly jam sessions. Jeannie Cheatham joined Sippie Wallace and Big Mama Thornton for a public television special that aired in 1983. Concord signed the duo in the mid-1980s, and they have continued to record with their regular group plus guests such as Charles McPherson, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, and Red Callendar.
