Review: 'Trying to Get Good: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon'

If the name Jack Sheldon doesn't ring a bell, consider this: Music elite and bebop fans widely consider him the greatest living jazz trumpeter. This unheralded maestro, a founder of the West Coast jazz movement, has, since the 1950s, performed everywhere from the Hollywood Bowl to Carnegie Hall, has played on hundreds of albums and has collaborated with such legendary artists as Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and Peggy Lee. Boomers may even remember the roly-poly Sheldon as Merv Griffin's trumpet-playing sidekick on the latter's long-running TV talk show.

By Gary Goldstein

May 30, 2008