Jack Sheldon

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Jazzmen Bubba Kolb, Jack Sheldon, and Ira Sullivan at the Village Jazz Lounge in Walt Disney World (photo by Laura Kolb)

Jack Sheldon (born November 30, 1931) is an American bebop and West Coast jazz trumpeter, singer, and actor.

Sheldon was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He originally became known through his participation in the West Coast jazz movement of the 1950s, performing and recording with such figures as Art Pepper, Gerry Mulligan, and Curtis Counce.

In the 1964-1965 season, Sheldon was a costar with Cara Williams and Frank Aletter on the CBS situation comedy, The Cara Williams Show in which Williams and Aletter played a secretly-married couple trying to keep their union quiet because their employer forbade a husband and wife from each working in the company.

From 1966-1967, Sheldon starred in his own 16-segment CBS sitcom, Run, Buddy, Run, as Buddy Overstreet, a young accountant taking a steam bath who overhears a mobster's plot to kill a colleague and then goes on the run to keep from being killed. Bruce Gordon, formerly of The Untouchables played the mobster, "Mr. D".

Sheldon played the trumpet, sang, and performed on the Merv Griffin television program. He was Merv's sidekick and comedic foil for many years. He also made numerous appearances on the 1967-70 version of the Jack Webb NBC series Dragnet.

His voice is perhaps best known from the popular Schoolhouse Rock cartoons of the early 1970s, such as "Conjunction Junction" and "I'm Just A Bill." Later, he parodied his own performance in "I'm Just a Bill" in an episode of The Simpsons called "The Day the Violence Died", where he is just an "amendment to be." "I'm Just a Bill" was also parodied in the Family Guy episode "Mr. Griffin Goes to Washington". Here, the bill on Capitol Hill begins singing the opening lyrics, when a janitor comes up and stabs him with a stick, then throws him away.

Sheldon's voice was also parodied in the Family Guy episode Running Mates where Peter made changes to the sex education curriculum with a spin off of the "Conjunction Junction" skit, "Vagina Junction".

Sheldon also voiced "Louie The Lightning Bug" in a series of animated musical PSA's aimed at children from the 1980s, promoting safety with electricity. [1]

Sheldon also appeared in an Oscar-nominated documentary film about the life of fellow jazz trumpeter Chet Baker called Let's Get Lost. His haunting trumpet solo, featured throughout the Francis Ford Coppola film, One from the Heart (1986), adds a rich moody character.

He made an appearance in the 1994 film Radioland Murders as the ill-fated trumpet player Ruffles Reedy, who becomes a victim of the gruesome goings-on during a 1939 radio show. In 2004, Jack performed live at the end of ALF's Hit Talk Show. He has also appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

As of 2007, Sheldon is still active and performing, including a performance at "Le Jazz Cool, Le Jazz Hot: A Celebration of Modern Jazz in Los Angeles and France" in November at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

Jack Sheldon is the subject of a soon to be released feature documentary, Trying to Get Good: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon (2008). Produced by Doug McIntyre & Penny Peyser, the film features interviews with Clint Eastwood, Billy Crystal, Merv Griffin, Chris Botti, Dave Frishberg, Johnny Mandel, Tierney Sutton and many more, as well as never before seen concert footage of Sheldon playing, singing and joking.

Jack's son, Kevin Sheldon, was a well known and talented craftsman in Los Angeles - who knew his tools like Jack knows his trumpet. Many lasting memorials stand as a tribute to his skills as well, located in many Hollywood celebrity homes and famous locations.