Jazz trombonist Jimmy Cleveland was a versatile musician whose work was largely confined to other artists' sessions, pit orchestras, and broadcasting. He backed artists including Quincy Jones, Miles Davis, James Brown, Billie Holiday, Cannonball Adderley, Ray Charles, and Dinah Washington, and his fluency and precision on the valve trombone, together with his warm tone and rich blues feel, made him greatly in demand for several decades. James Milton Cleveland was born in Wartrace on May 3, 1926, and by 1930 his family was living on Knob Creek Road. His father, a plumber who owned his business, bought him a trombone he found in the loft of a local store when he was 16. Cleveland worked in his father's business until enlisting on January 2, 1945, toward the end of the Second World War. After his discharge in 1946, he attended Tennessee State University in Nashville, where he performed with the Tennessee State Collegians band and led a small group in local clubs. On April 10, 1949, he appeared with the TSU band at New York's Carnegie Hall for the Pittsburgh Courier's Poll Winners' Jazz Concert, where big band leader Lionel Hampton hired him on the spot. In October 1950, Cleveland made his recording debut with Hampton and appeared briefly in Hampton's 1950 soundie movie short promoting the song Vibe Boogie. After a 1953 tour of Europe, he left Hampton and settled in New York, working as an on-call session musician for recordings and radio. Bob Shad of Mercury Records heard Cleveland backing Dinah Washington and signed him to a solo contract. In August and November 1955, Cleveland recorded his first album, Introducing Jimmy Cleveland and his All-Stars, for Mercury's jazz imprint, EmArcy. He continued recording for Mercury until 1959, and his four EmArcy LPs were his only solo albums. Cleveland continued session work and played in the pit orchestra for Funny Girl when Barbra Streisand held the lead. In 1967, he joined Thelonious Monk's octet/nonet for a European tour and made short forays on the road with other jazz artists, but his regular employment remained in the studios. Called to the West Coast by arranger-producer Quincy Jones, he worked for many studio orchestras, commuting between New York and Los Angeles until 1974, when he and his wife, singer Janet Thurlow, settled in the Lynnwood suburb of Los Angeles. He played in the house band on The Merv Griffin Show from 1969 until 1977 and also worked sessions for Motown and other record labels. His work declined sharply as he began to suffer side effects of diabetes, but he and his wife had purchased rental properties and lived comfortably in Lynnwood. In his later years, he assembled a 9-piece band to play local jazz clubs and overseas dates. In interviews, Cleveland decried systemic racism in the studios, arguing that white musicians would get the first call for studio work. He died in Lynnwood on August 23, 2008.