[Dixielandjazz] Jack Sheldon interviewed

[Harry Callaghan]

But did he sing Bob Dylan's "Leopard Skin Pill-Box Hat" with Fulton Street
as he did with Woody Herman's orchestra?.....San Francisco's Great American
Music Hall, 1983
HC
On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 12:45 PM, Robert Ringwald <rsr at ringwald.com> wrote:

> Maybe not OKOM for some on the List, but definitely MKOM.
>
> Jack has sat in with my band, the Fulton Street Jazz Band more than once
> and plays absolutely great Dixieland.
>
> --Bob Ringwald
>
>
>
> Jack Sheldon: Keeping His Chops Up
> Don Heckman catches up with trumpeter, vocalist and bon  vivant
> JazzTimes.com, March 9, 2011
> Three days before his 79th birthday on Nov. 30, 2010, Jack Sheldon was his
> usual
> sardonic, wickedly whimsical self. Seated amid his Jack Sheldon Orchestra,
> a round
> mound of melody and rhythm surrounded by some of Los Angeles' finest
> players, he
> was doing what he's done for the past five decades: keeping the jazz flame
> burning
> bright with his articulate bebop trumpet playing and between-tunes gag
> lines. "They
> sang 'Happy Birthday,'" Sheldon says a couple days after that Catalina Bar
> and Grill
> performance. "But they didn't give me a birthday cake." Then, allowing a
> couple of
> beats to pass for perfect timing, he adds, "But I'm so fat, I don't need
> any cake."
> A comparison of his current image with photos of the slender, striking
> Sheldon of
> the '50s argues in favor of the trumpeter's assessment: He has indeed
> increased his
> avoirdupois over the decades. But his trumpet playing is as trim and
> appealing as
> it was when he was a boon companion of such West Coast icons as Art Pepper,
> Chet
> Baker and Gerry Mulligan.
> Sheldon claims he's on track to do something about the weight. "I swim a
> lot," he
> says, "but I'm still not too svelte -- right now. But I'm planning to go
> into training
> in January. I'll work with weights and running and swimming. That's about
> it. I'm
> too fat. I haven't been warned about my weight by a doctor, not yet."
> Then comes the punchline: "People on the street just come up and warn me
> about it."
> Although Sheldon was born in Jacksonville, Fla., he's been a dedicated Los
> Angeleno
> since he was 15. "I liked the West Coast from the very beginning," he says.
> "The
> weather and everything else are just right for me." His mother, Jen Loven,
> taught
> showbiz greats how to swim at her Jen Loven Swim School in Hollywood.
> Sheldon, as
> a result, has been a dedicated swimmer for most of his life. And his
> daughter Jesse
> is following in her grandmother's wake, he says, "teaching all the movie
> stars and
> their kids."
> The 1950s in Los Angeles were Sheldon's 20s, and, influenced by the sound,
> spirit
> and humor of Dizzy Gillespie, he quickly became one of the primary figures
> in the
> West Coast jazz of the period. "There actually weren't so many of us, at
> the time,"
> he recalls. "Now there are a million jazz guys out here, and they all play
> great.
> But what we were doing back then, back in the '50s -- that was different.
> We knew
> we were doing something special."
> Surviving as a jazz musician, however, required more than local gigs at
> places like
> Gene Norman's Crescendo and the occasional recording session. In the late
> '50s Sheldon
> toured extensively with some of jazz's greatest big bands. "We'd go from
> the West
> Coast to the East Coast, depending on who we were playing with," he
> remembers. "Benny
> Goodman, Stan Kenton. One time, when I was with Goodman, we played opposite
> Count
> Basie at Basin Street East. And once he sat in with the Goodman band. That
> was something.
> There's nobody like Basie.
> "I loved working with Kenton," he continues. "Usually I just played with
> him off
> and on. But once, in one continuous stretch, I played with him four months
> steady,
> every night. The playing part of it was fine -- there were five trumpets,
> and I didn't
> have anything demanding to play, not really. I mostly just did the solos.
> But four
> months on the road? Man, that was enough of the road for me. And I loved
> getting
> back to California."
> Unlike many other California jazz artists, being based in Los Angeles
> rather than
> New York wasn't a detriment to Sheldon's career. To the contrary, his
> highly visible
> presence around L.A. earned him an endless list of high-profile credits as
> well as
> film- and TV-related work -- off- and onscreen. It's his lyrical trumpet
> that is
> heard playing Johnny Mandel's "The Shadow of Your Smile" in the 1965 film
> "The Sandpiper."
> His section playing can be heard in the themes for "Peter Gunn" and "The
> Munsters,"
> among many other shows. And Sheldon is fond of his playing on the
> soundtrack for
> the 1991 romantic comedy "The Object of Beauty," just one more of his
> myriad film-score
> appearances. His purely musical collaborations encompass such stellar names
> as Gillespie,
> Dexter Gordon, Curtis Counce, Shelly Manne, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Tony
> Bennett,
> Peggy Lee, Zoot Sims, Henry Mancini, Marty Paich, Tom Waits and dozens of
> others.
> Over the years, Sheldon's quick-witted onstage commentary -- often tinged
> with the
> risque double-entendres that became part of his repertoire during a long
> run of Playboy
> Club appearances -- became a fundamental aspect of his performances.
> Hanging out
> with such edgy, jazz-influenced comics as Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl further
> enhanced
> his already adept comedic skills, fostering Sheldon's careers as musician,
> funnyman
> and actor. His long resume of film and television appearances includes
> co-starring
> roles in the sitcoms "The Cara Williams Show" (1964-65) and "The Girl with
> Something
> Extra" (1973-74), as well as the starring role in his own sitcom, "Run,
> Buddy, Run,"
> from 1966-67. Fans of "Dragnet's" late-'60s run might also recall the
> trumpeter.
> "Jack Webb used to come into a club where I was working," says Sheldon. "He
> was a
> big jazz fan and a great guy, and I said, 'Hey, lemme work on your show
> sometime.'
> So he put me to work all the time."
> Even as a singer Sheldon became part of America's cultural mainstream: His
> voice
> should be instantly recognizable to Gen-X kids who grew up with the
> educational TV
> series "Schoolhouse Rock!" Sheldon sang the whimsical description of how
> Congress
> works titled "I'm Just a Bill," and portrayed the train engineer on the
> "grammar
> rock" song "Conjunction Junction." Years later he did a parody of his own
> voice on
> a "Family Guy" episode, singing "Vagina Junction" for a sex-education
> send-up.
> Sheldon's television career peaked with an 18-year run on "The Merv Griffin
> Show"
> that stretched from the '60s into the '80s. He recalls the relationship
> with Griffin
> and the show warmly, a job that allowed him to use almost all of his
> skills: playing
> trumpet, singing and telling jokes. Typically, Sheldon characterizes this
> important
> period with humor. "It was great in a lot of ways," he says. "But mostly
> because
> I got to sing, too, which was another whole money thing. Working the show
> was good
> money, already. But it got even better when I'd appear on camera on the
> show and
> sing and talk, and make more money."
> Throughout his acting assignments, Sheldon's trumpet work continued to play
> a significant
> role in the West Coast jazz scene. A firm believer in the importance of
> practicing
> his instrument, he managed to find time and opportunities to keep up his
> chops. "When
> I'm doing good," he says, "I practice every day. Usually, if you play hard
> and play
> more, that builds it up. When I was doing a TV show or a movie, I always
> practiced
> when we weren't shooting. There's always a lot time while they're fixing
> the lights
> and everything. And sometimes, like when I put together my big band for the
> [1991]
> movie 'For the Boys,' we'd play on the set when they were taking breaks in
> the filming.
> Bette Midler and James Caan were in that, and they loved it."
> The band Sheldon assembled for that WWII period piece became the foundation
> for the
> big band he still leads. Although only one or two of the original players
> remain,
> most of the musicians in the current lineup have been with him for many
> years. With
> a book of arrangements written primarily by Tom Kubis, with significant
> contributions
> from Bill Holman and others, the Sheldon big band is a shining light in
> Southern
> California's surprisingly expansive catalog of large jazz ensembles. "We
> can only
> work with the big band once in a while, given the economy," says Sheldon.
> "Mostly
> I'm performing with my California Cool Quartet. And since everybody works
> so much
> these days, I have about four different versions I can use, with guys like
> Joe Bagg
> and Mitch Forman on piano, Bruce Lett on bass, Dave Tull and Ray Brinker on
> drums.
> Great guys, all of them.
> "Then I've got my organ trio, featuring Joe Bagg. I love that group,
> because it opens
> up so much room for me to play."
> Although Sheldon, who is divorced, has had to endure the deaths of two of
> his four
> children -- his daughter Julie to an airplane crash, his son Kevin to
> cancer -- he
> generally presents the demeanor of a contented guy.
> But he still likes to keep some complaints in reserve, for joke-related
> purposes
> if nothing else. "Mostly I'm pretty happy," Sheldon concludes. "I don't
> really have
> anything to complain about, but I find stuff. I don't drink, not for 20 or
> 30 years.
> I'm real healthy now.
> "Except, like I said," he adds with a grin, "for being too fat. And even
> that's gonna
> change soon."
>
>
> --Bob Ringwald
> www.ringwald.com
> Fulton Street Jazz Band
> 530/ 642-9551 Office
> 916/ 806-9551 Cell
> Amateur (Ham) Radio K6YBV
>
> My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary.
> She said, "I want something shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3
> seconds."
> I bought her a bathroom scale.
>
>
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