Jazz Articles about Jack Sheldon

Jack Sheldon: Still Going Strong

by Larry Taylor
April 22, 2008

For Jack Sheldon, a beacon for some sixty years on the West Coast jazz scene, 2008 is turning out to be a very good year. At 76, the celebrated trumpet player, vocalist, bandleader and TV personality, is the subject of a new documentary film, while his jazz career continues to accelerate.He was there when the so-called West Coast Jazz—a cooled-down version of hard bop—was born. He calls himself a “survivor" from the period. “Only a few of us ...

Jack Sheldon and the California Cool Quartet: It's What I Do

by C. Michael Bailey
January 19, 2008

If West Coast jazz has a tone, it is dry ice cool. Trumpeter, vocalist and actor Jack Sheldon, the entertainment triple threat, played a big part in forging this tone in the period following Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool (Blue Note, 1949). That recording was the shot over the bow of bebop that gave rise to the Left Coast cats perfecting what Miles started, just as Mozart perfected Haydn's brand of classicism. Sheldon's huge personality and capacity for practical ...

Jack Sheldon & Jack Marshall: Freaky Friday: The Jazz Opera

by Jim Santella
February 4, 2006

Humor and jazz from the early 1960s give this short opera plenty of sex appeal. The music that Jack Sheldon created, and the dialogue that he wrote with Jack Marshall, comes from an era when beach movies were popular and Elvis was giving the big-screen heartthrob performances that would last forever.Howard Roberts' guitar, Sheldon's trumpet, and vocals by both Sheldon and Nancy Kelly give this precursor to Schoolhouse Rock a terrific ambience. Tongue-in-cheek humor abounds from start to ...

Jack Sheldon in New Orleans

by Jim Santella
September 24, 2005

Jack Sheldon Jack Sheldon in New Orleans Kultur 2005 At a live 1984 performance in Lulu White's Mahogany Hall on Bourbon Street, Jack Sheldon and his all-star ensemble perform a program of straight-ahead jazz pieces that finds them sizzling as if there's no tomorrow. Sheldon's voice was then quite clear and his trumpet playing was as great as it is today. A real swinger who takes pleasure in doing it right, the ...

Jack Sheldon Quintet at the Lighthouse

by Jim Santella
June 28, 2005

The Lighthouse Hermosa Beach, California June 19, 2005

Father's Day brought out a leisure-loving audience of dedicated jazz fans for Jack Sheldon's warm performance at the historic Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach for Sunday brunch. It makes no difference whether you're young or old, modern or traditional, East Coast or West Coast, or just plain ambivalent. Everybody likes Jack Sheldon. At 73, he's at the peak of his career. The music has never sounded better, he's able ...

Jack Sheldon California Cool Quartet: California Cool

by Jim Santella
November 1, 2004

Trumpeter Jack Sheldon, who started out with Wardell Gray and Dexter Gordon, has helped build the West Coast sound in jazz. His early work with Art Pepper, Jimmy Giuffre, Curtis Counce, and Herb Geller helped to knit together a tight circle of musical associates who pioneered the West Coast cool faction in modern jazz. Chet Baker was a close friend. Like Baker and Miles Davis, Sheldon takes great care with the golden tone that he's developed on his instrument. Smooth ...

Art Pepper: Smack Up

by David Rickert
April 16, 2004

Art Pepper's reckless lifestyle tended to overshadow his superb musicianship, and the circumstances surrounding Smack Up are certainly no exception. Shortly after recording it in 1960, he spent three years in jail for heroin possession, and one can only wonder if the title of the record is a play on words. Nevertheless, Pepper is in good form, as he usually was despite his troubles, darting over the changes and stitching together sharp, boppish lines without hesitation. Featuring a crack rhythm ...