Jimmy Cheatham | Jazz trombonist, 82

Jimmy Cheatham, 82, the jazz trombonist and teacher who played with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before forming his own blues band with his wife, died Jan. 12.

Mr. Cheatham died of heart failure after collapsing at his San Diego home, said his wife, Jeannie. He had suffered an arrhythmia and had undergone heart surgery in December.

He also worked as an arranger and composer. Since the mid-1980s, he had played with his wife, a vocalist and pianist, in their Kansas City-style Sweet Baby Blues Band.

Their 1985 debut, Sweet Baby Blues, won a French Grand Prix du Disque award. Luv in the Afternoon was voted blues album of the year in a 1991 critics poll in Down Beat magazine. - AP