Cleveland Josephus Eaton II (August 31, 1939 – July 5, 2020) was an American jazz double bassist, producer, arranger, composer, publisher, and head of his own record company in Fairfield, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham.

[5][6] Eaton came from a music-loving family, including an elder sister who studied at both Fisk University and the Juilliard School of Music in New York.

He played an early gig with the Ike Cole Trio and recorded with the Donald Byrd & Pepper Adams Quintet (which also included Herbie Hancock).

[1] "I knew Herbie Hancock, who was with Donald Byrd and Pepper Adams," Eaton explained in an interview in Oxford American, "and he got me a job with them for a year and a half.

[9] As Eaton relays it in a 1997 interview, he was teaching, playing clubs, and writing his own music in 1979 when Count Basie called, asking if he could fill in for a bass player who was ill.

[1] After spending years on the road as a musician and arranger with a list of artists who form a virtual Who's Who of jazz, Eaton returned to Birmingham, Alabama, to join UAB's music department in 1996.

[6][2] He played on notable recording sessions with Dexter Gordon, Gene Ammons,[1] John Klemmer, Ike Cole, Bunky Green, The Dells, Bobby Rush, Minnie Riperton, Jerry Butler and Rotary Connection, George Benson, Henry Mancini, Frank Sinatra, Joe Williams, Billy Eckstine, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald.

He also performed with Nancy Wilson, Peggy Lee, Mimi Hines, Sammy Davis Jr., Julie London, Bobby Troup, Brook Benton, Lou Rawls, Nipsey Russell, Morgana King, Gloria Lynne, Herbie Hancock, Magic City Jazz Orchestra, The Platters, Temptations, and The Miracles.