Jesus, Jazz, and Buddhism

When you first hear Jack Sheldon’s trumpet playing, it sounds like the trills and scales of Charlie Parker, though less frenetic.  His melodies and solos are controlled, always weaving in and out of the supporting instruments, instead of separating completely from them.  Exploring the space between percussion, brass, and piano with the vigor of Marco Polo or Vasco de Gama, he marks the music of Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon, and Dizzy Gillespie with an energetic underscore.  Sheldon has been hailed as “a Jazz mystic”[1] because of his ability to apply the principles of jazz to everyday life.  These principles—energy, connection, and improvisation—have made Jack Sheldon a cultural force of the twentieth century.  His contributions are innumerable, and often remain unnoticed.

Jazz was born from difficulties African Americans faced in New Orleans.  In the 1920’s Americans, black and white, used this “negro music” to move past the horrors of World War I and sidestep restrictions of the Prohibition period.  The mindset of materialism came to a crashing halt in 1929 when the stock market crashed—people who could escaped to clubs, where jazz allowed them to Jitterbug and Charleston away personal miseries.  One could argue that Jack Sheldon was bequeathed his personality, characterized by Don Heckman as “sardonic, wickedly whimsical,” from his birth in 1931[2].  Encapsulating the role of jazz as cross-cultural exchange, Sheldon rose to prominence between the Zoot Suit riots of 1943 and the Watts Riots in 1965; results of escalated race tensions in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles.  This period saw jazz artists crossing the lines of fire, using music as a means to communicate.  “What we were doing back then,” he recalls, “back in the ‘50s—that was different.  We knew were doing something special.”[3]  Like Dizzy Gillespie, who espoused Afro-Cuban music later in his career, Sheldon made a name for himself and traveled extensively, picking up tips from other bands and bringing new sounds to the Los Angeles jazz scene.

What makes Sheldon unique was that he brought jazz to all walks of life.  He took it from the clubs to Hollywood to American households and back again.  With the help of Art Pepper and Chet Baker, among others, he garnered respect for West Coast Jazz and developed it into a bona-fide genre.  But in an era of breakout stars and Beatlemania, he had to distinguish himself in other ways.  His charisma (not to mention his location and brilliant trumpet playing) landed Sheldon a showbusiness career that began with bit parts in movies and culminated with an eighteen-year stint on the Merv Griffin Show, when he played Griffin’s trumpet-playing assistant.  Both jazz and stand-up comedy require their practitioners to connect with others onstage and with the audience; this determines the direction of the show.  Meeting so many people on the road and in Hollywood gave Sheldon lots of fodder for the quips he intersperses between songs, about his fellow musicians, the audience, and life in general (“Pretty girls can do anything but ugly girls have to do everything.”)  His powerful, yet raspy growl of a singing voice certainly did not hurt.

Also during the ‘70s, Sheldon was immortalized in American culture by his roles in Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill” and “Conjunction Junction” educational cartoon shorts.  One could empathize with the Amazon reviewer’s nostalgia for the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert while admiring Sheldon’s ability to fit himself to the times.  A true self-deprecating comedian, he parodied these roles on the popular, somewhat raunchy cartoon Family Guy in the early 2000s.

Even apart from his hand in educating American children from the seventies onward, Jack Sheldon, like jazz, is a vibrant example of American ideals—creativity, resourcefulness, a respect for tradition combined with the willingness to improve upon it.  He was not satisfied with being merely a trumpet player, even a trumpet player alongside the likes of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett.  Just as emotion comes through in an instrumental piece, Sheldon’s initiative reads in his live performances, which combine music and stand-up comedy, trumpet and voice, like Louis Armstrong before him.  “A man with a special musicality,”[4] Jack works at his passion, and his passion works for him.

[1] Trying to Get Good, Jack Sheldon Documentary
Picture from tryingtogetgood.com

[2] Don Heckman, “Jack Sheldon: Keeping His Chops Up”

[3] ibid.

Photo by Jerry Fuller: Carl Perkins, piano, Curtis Counce, bass, Frank Butler, drums, 
Harold Land, tenor sax and Jack Sheldon, trumpet, Unidentified club in L.A., 1957 

[4] Zan Stewart, Los Angeles Times