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TRYING TO GET GOOD - the Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon

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Sometimes, not often, you walk away from a film late at night and by the next morning, you realize it is now your duty as a good human to call everyone you know and tell them about it. Friends, family...people you might even be on the fence about...just because you have to get out the word. The Peyser/McIntyre documentary "Trying To Get Good: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon" is such a film. There is an intangible something about this work that is infectious in the best of ways. The music in quintessential and classic and the interviews vary between hysterical and tragically moving, but all are profound. The clips and stills provide the right amount of historical background to a jazz legend who should be lauded on a much larger scale. But it's the man himself, a saucy, bawdy, sad, brilliant artiste of a trumpet player who seeps into your consciousness and makes you want to see the film a second and third time. More to the point, it makes you want to collect every album he's ever played on and go have the Sheldon experience live (which you still can). "Trying To Get Good" is a savvy, lean, artfully constructed tribute to a great musician. If you don't live in the Los Angeles area, you might miss Jack Sheldon. You should not miss this film.

September 23, 2008
I saw this beautiful Peyser/McIntyre documentary about the great trumpeter "Trying To Get Good: The Jazz Odyssey of Jack Sheldon" on the big screen in an audience laughing so hard sometimes I missed the next remark.
In addition to interviews with the many famous and accomplished people who know Jack Sheldon, and music clips of his astounding performances, I was given something ephemeral and rare.

The careful choices of the filmmakers reveal a deeper sense of the artist and his journey. What Jack Sheldon clearly means by trying to get good is an expression of any artist's endless and futile quest. All artists able to articulate, talk about the constant labor required even to approach the way they imagine their work. They all talk about being only a channel through which the art emerges.

In the interviews about Sheldon, we get a picture of his deep commitment to the music, and the profound influence this commitment has on other artists. I particularly loved hearing another trumpeter explain Sheldon's masterful technique. Out of what seems to be a simple loving homage to a great musician, and complex difficult man, filled with wicked jokes and a glimpse of his wild life, emerges a valuable roadmap to anyone wishing to pursue art.

I spent time in the lobby listening to the happy exiting audience, and one in particular stood out: a white-haired woman who said she was inspired watching him, and was going to put time and effort into pursuing her own artistic life, that it was not too late, and she was ready to do the work. Like he did.

I first new of Jack Sheldon from School House Rock when I was about 11 years old. "I'm Just a Bill, "Conjunction Junction", etc. His music taught me lessons in government as well as English and spelling. Cut to some 20 years later, I am at my uncles house listening to some of his big band music with him, and I hear a voice that is very familiar. I ask my uncle "Who is that"? "That's Jack Sheldon" he says.

After listening to "Forget About Me"...and that was it for me. He told me that Jack had played with every major Jazz & Big Band Artist from the last 30 years as well as being the band leader for Merv Griffin (which I would watch every day with my folks growing up) but I never realized how great this man's music is.

It's always great to hear the story of a jazz musician. Every musician's life has at some point had hard times, otherwise their music to me just isn't genuine when you hear it, and Jack has had his share of hard times. But what makes "Trying to Get Good" a great movie, is that unlike great musician's Like Chet Baker or Charlie Parker, Jack made it out alive...so if I sound selfish, we can have him around a bit longer.

The stories in this film are really fun to listen to, from Billy Crystal, to Clint Eastwood to Jack himself. After watching this film, what struck me the most was that Jack is Jack, he doesn't make any apologies for who he is, or how he lived his life, he just does his own thing....but does it so damn well that you think to yourself "Damn that looks like fun" and I think Jack will tell you..."Yeah, it is"

I had the good fortune of attending the premiere of this film. Doug McIntyre is a radio man by trade, as I am, and I also play the instrument Jack Sheldon works so hard to get good at, so I was thrilled to hear of the finished product and more thrilled to see it. I now have two copies (well, one, but Doug owes me another. You see, there was some confusion in shipping... but I digress). So I come at this review knowing Sheldon's work well while gaining a new perspective on a colleague whose work I already admire, but this film outstrips all preconceived notions of what I thought Trying to Get Good would be. It's tremendous.

Jack Sheldon's story is multi-faceted, like a diamond, really. You look at him from one angle and you see the comedian, the storyteller who will go as far as he wants to get a laugh, almost putting Merv Griffin in debt to the FCC (if that were possible). Turn him around and you hear a singer of amazing depth and warmth where the lyrics pour out like warm syrup and stick to your heart. Face him and you see the love of his life, his trumpet, where his skills, his true personality can glow on every level; you see his adoration of melody, his technical prowess, his individuality, yet in plain view is his dissatisfaction with performance, his desire to improve. It's as if he must, MUST get the proper response from every phrase and looks as a child might to his mother for approval. He'll seem to regard the end of a phrase as if just hearing it in full, as if someone else had played it. While on stage in one segment, he mentions to his teacher (yes, he takes lessons to this day) and says, "I know, Uan, I was sharp. I fixed it." Astounding coming from a legend like Jack, yet not terribly surprising. What artist doesn't strive to be better?

Tragedy punctuated his life with the loss of family members, a divorce, a bout with the bottle and drugs, and only a relatively short part of the film is devoted to this subject, but at 76 (or so), he's as good a performer as I remember him on Merv. He can be seen live here in Los Angeles most evenings. And his love of LA is covered beautifully in the film.

After the premiere, I approached Jack and told him how he had been an inspiration to me in my early playing days, and again with my recent reintroduction to music. He asked me, "What do you play?" I said, "Trumpet." Jack paused, grinned and said, "Hard, isn't it?" Great movie, Doug and Penny. Do more.

At first it isn't clear where all of the deep-felt soul in this guy's playing comes from, but over the course of the film, slowly but surely, new facts slip into place, facts about the pain and the failures and the losses that Sheldon has lived through, so that when he finally breaks into his stunning solo on "It Had To Be You," it all comes together--magnificently. It made me want to rush out and buy every Jack Sheldon album I could get my hands on.

Jack Sheldon is one of the few remaining lions of jazz that speaks with a distinctive voice. This film,produced over 5 years truly captures all the elements of his life that go into the sound that Jack produces musically. Its so well crafted, some great footage of his early days in Los Angeles and his mothers swimming school. Lots of cameos by so many people, Clint Eastwood, Billy Crystal, Merv Griffin, Johnny Mandel, Dave Frishberg, and many others.

This film is must for every jazz musician and afficianado. A Winner.

I can't see any jazz lover not liking this story of an exceptional man/jazz musician.

A very well done film about a great musician who's flown under the radar. Even if you are a music aficionado you will learn something and be thoroughly entertained by Jack Sheldon's story. After watching the film I went out and bought a bunch of his music.

Well over 99% of the public is clueless about the music and significance of Charlie Parker, whose name in the jazz history books and a Hollywood biopic treatment assure at least some hope of recognition among the remaining 1%. But with Sonny Stitt or Harold Land or Hank Mobley (extraordinarily gifted saxophonists--and oft-documented on record) that 1% comes ever closer to verging on a cipher, an all-but-measurable fractional figure. Among brilliant trumpet players of the past half century, Jack Sheldon is almost as "anonymous" as the scandalously neglected Kenny Dorham or Bill Hardman. Even those familiar with his name are as apt to respond to his screen persona (as star of a television comedy series or main chum of the late Merv Griffin) or to his speaking voice (featured on numerous commercials and children's television programs) as to his trumpet artistry, which is arguably of the same level as Miles or Dizzy or Clifford Brown.

All it takes is two notes--sometimes no more than one--played by Jack during a filler-phrase gleaming through a full orchestral setting on a Peggy Lee recording for an alert listener to recognize that inimitable sound. To say that he deserves the listener's undivided attention should go without saying, yet on a popular video site Jack can be seen playing recently under the most insensitive conditions--in a spaghetti restaurant where his trumpet is drowned out by crowd chatter. It's high time, and gratifying, to see a film calling attention to Jack Sheldon's formidable, even prodigious, talents along with a journey that could easily be seen as archetypal--a creative musician seeking mastery of his craft and an outlet for significant self-expression in a milieu which frankly rewards neither. At the same time, watching this film will leave some Sheldon fans feeling ambivalent--like experiencing another preachment to the choir. It can only be hoped that viewers of this film will be motivated to seek out the best work not only of Sheldon but other neglected, even nearly forgotten jazz masters. (Bear in mind that much of Jack's best work is recorded under the name of some other leader ("The Curtis Counce Group" is a personal favorite, though "Smack Up" under the name of Art Pepper is another sterling example.)

It's easy to "blame" Jack for getting side-tracked during his career--taking on the roles of stand-up comedian, jokester, and "character" actor at the expense not so much of his art (his trumpet has never failed him, even if his judgment occasionally has--it's the mass public that needs to "try to get good") but of the reverence that is due a creative, singular musician in an indigenous American art form that, despite the odds, has produced no small number of contenders for hall-of-fame honors. But when you see the sobering list of embittered and self-destructive young men--and women--who could not handle the indifference and rejection let alone the poisonous substances they turned to for escape, you can only marvel not simply that Jack Sheldon became good but that he survived long enough to claim such greatness as his own (not that he ever would--he's much too modest or, some would say, insecure for that). Lest there be doubts about Sheldon's "seriousness" as an artist--and at one time, some of us had them--"Trying to Get Good" makes it plain that while Jack had his share of distractions, his was a muse that could never be accused of complacency.

Great documentary on Jack Sheldon the trumpet player. Always like the sound of Sheldon's trumpet and had no idea what made the sound so great. Not only is the documentary good but you get an idea of how much work and dedication it takes to be one of the best. With quick electronic music on the computer, you can pump out music in a few hours but you can't get that soul without the life that goes into the music. This will make you want to go out an collect everything "Sheldon". That trumpet just touches you heart and soul.