Doc Cheatham
American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader
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(Suggest an Edit or Addition)According to Wikipedia, Adolphus Anthony Cheatham, better known as Doc Cheatham , was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and bandleader. He is also the grandfather of musician Theo Croker. Early life Doc Cheatham was born in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, of African, Cherokee and Choctaw heritage. 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. Cheatham started playing music when he was 15, first on the cornet and soon after the trumpet, taking trumpet lessons from Fisk University professor N. C. Davis. He also played saxophone and drums. abandoned his family's plans for him to be a pharmacist to play music, performing in Nashville's African American Vaudeville theater. Cheatham later toured in band accompanying blues singers on the Theater Owners Booking Association circuit. 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 him around. Oliver gave young Cheatham a mute, which Cheatham treasured and performed with 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, describing him as "an ordinary-extraordinary man."
