Jimmy Noone Jr.

The oldest of New Orleans clarinetist Jimmie Noone's three children, Jimmy Jr. was born in Chicago. When he was still a toddler, the family moved to Los Angeles after his father took a job on Orson Welles' radio program. After his father passed in 1944, his mother, Rita, married bandleader Troy Floyd - who moved the family south to San Diego, where he helped manage the Creole Palace, one of the largest dance clubs catering to black audiences.

Noone Jr. made his professional debut in 1964 - and played piano, organ and saxophone at first. He played organ in saxophonist Ted PIcou's jazz band, "Good News," in the early 1970s, and composed "Logan Avenue Blues" which was featured on the 1976 compilation KGB Home Grown IV.

Jeannie Cheatham recalls meeting him at one of the weekly jam sessions she and her late husband, Jimmy, ran after moving to San Diego in the late 1970s. It was possibly there that he began exploring his father's signature instrument, the clarinet - the instrument he would become known for as well for the rest of his life.

Although born in Chicago and raised in Southern California, Noone Jr. retained his father's New Orleans-styled phrasing and stylistic preferences.

When the Cheathams' weekly jam sessions led to a recording contract with Concord Records in 1984, Noone Jr. was one of the founding members of the Cheathams' Sweet Baby Blues Band - a chair he would hold until his death, recording five albums with them.

In 1985, he recorded a tribute to his father with  British saxophonist John R.T. Davies, Jimmy Remembers Jimmie. The year before, he was in the studio with Los Angeles-based Hal Smith's Creole Sunshine Orchestra for Do What Ory Say!, a tribute to Kid Ory - contributing a vocal on Ory's "Creole Song."

He played in other combos around San Diego as well, including the band of boogie woogie pianist Sue Palmer, and fronted his own New Orleans Marching Band and Good Time Society - with which he regularly contributed vocals as well as clarinet.

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