Larry Kart Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 While the music is great, as is the refurbished sound, I'm pissed all over again at the way the late Pete Welding pisses all over Jack Sheldon in the liner notes (reprinted from a 198Os compilation of this material): "simply outclassed by Pepper ... his solos have a meandering discursive quality, and too often he indulges in gratuitous effects ... overindulgence in the spurious" etc. (How much "indulgence in spurious" would be OK?) This point of view toward Sheldon is not exclusive to Welding -- Martin Williams once took a whack at Jack -- but it's dumb IMO, based on a failure to grasp what a witty, often deliberately bordering on the whacky, very hip player Sheldon was (and I'm sure still is). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etherbored Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 dude - i TOTALLY agree. i can't believe that mosaic parlayed those unnecessarily harsh notes criticizing sheldon. very poor taste. can't say that i'd necessarily be a fan of welding's writing anyhow. talk about institutionalizing jazz... -e- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheldonm Posted February 24, 2005 Report Share Posted February 24, 2005 dude - i TOTALLY agree. i can't believe that mosaic parlayed those unnecessarily harsh notes criticizing sheldon. very poor taste. can't say that i'd necessarily be a fan of welding's writing anyhow. talk about institutionalizing jazz... -e- ...no one better be criticizing me~ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mgraham333 Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 That's funny. I hadn't made it to the liner notes yet but was listening to this the other night and was wondering who was on trumpet. I saw Jack Sheldon and thought to myself, I'm gonna have to check into this guy. I know nothing about him - but really enjoyed his playing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron S Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 I completely agree with you about Sheldon's playing, and apparently so did Pepper, and Koenig et al at Contemporary. Unfortunately, Sheldon didn't help his jazz credentials with the critics by starring in zany sitcoms and serving as Merv Griffin's court jester in the '60's and '70's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nessa Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 Sheldon didn't help his jazz credentials with the critics by starring in zany sitcoms and serving as Merv Griffin's court jester in the '60's and '70's. Really don't think that had anything to do with his "jazz credentials". Lester Bowie told me about some sort of "trumpet summit" he played in Boston. Jack walked on stage (looking like 300 lbs) and said something like "Sorry I'm so G-D fat, but I've been fucking for years and finally got pregnant". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GregK Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 Sheldon didn't help his jazz credentials with the critics by starring in zany sitcoms and serving as Merv Griffin's court jester in the '60's and '70's. Really don't think that had anything to do with his "jazz credentials". Lester Bowie told me about some sort of "trumpet summit" he played in Boston. Jack walked on stage (looking like 300 lbs) and said something like "Sorry I'm so G-D fat, but I've been fucking for years and finally got pregnant". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron S Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 Sheldon didn't help his jazz credentials with the critics by starring in zany sitcoms and serving as Merv Griffin's court jester in the '60's and '70's. Really don't think that had anything to do with his "jazz credentials". Lester Bowie told me about some sort of "trumpet summit" he played in Boston. Jack walked on stage (looking like 300 lbs) and said something like "Sorry I'm so G-D fat, but I've been fucking for years and finally got pregnant". But that's fairly recent, isn't it? I was referring to liner notes/criticism from the '80's, or earlier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Nessa Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 But that's fairly recent, isn't it? I was referring to liner notes/criticism from the '80's, or earlier. Please 'splain what the timeframe or some critic's opinion has to do with Jack's "jazz credentials". I see it as their problem, not his. AND my story was not that recent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron S Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 But that's fairly recent, isn't it? I was referring to liner notes/criticism from the '80's, or earlier. Please 'splain what the timeframe or some critic's opinion has to do with Jack's "jazz credentials". I see it as their problem, not his. AND my story was not that recent. We're on the same page, Chuck. I was responding to the first post in this thread, and saying that Sheldon's acting and comedic antics in the '60's and '70's (remember "Run, Buddy, Run"?) probably didn't help his creds with the jazz critics, contributing to the negative comments quoted in the first post. I agree that his playing--especially with Pepper and others in the '50's and early '60's--should speak for itself, but I'm guessing that at least some critics can't evaluate it without letting his wacky public persona of the '60's and '70's color their opinions. FWIW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Kart Posted February 25, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 FWIW, I think that Martin Williams' whack at Sheldon came in a Down Beat review from the 1950s (probably of one of the Curtis Counce albums) in which Martin referred to him (this is close but not an exact quote) as one of those West Coast Miles Davis imitators who puts the climaxes in all the wrong places. Oddly enough, I'm pretty sure I know just what Martin was thinking of here -- there are some typical Sheldon gestures that sound like '50s Miles cliches played upside down, or inside out, or out of sync (in particular, the way Jack would juxtapose shouts and whispers, with the whispers usually coming right after, or in between, the shouts). But I'm sure that Sheldon, who certainly knew his Miles, also knew exactly what he was up to here, and that these moments were personal offshoots of his own soul and outrageous wit rather than failed attempts to sound like Miles. But then, if I were given the task of inventing a good jazz musician that Martin couldn't get in a million years, I might have come up with Jack Sheldon. P.S. If I remember Chuck's Sheldon story correctly, what Jack said was "I've been f***ing a lot lately" etc. If so, "lately" is comic genius. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 Jack Sheldon needs to write an autobiography. Preferably his. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Kart Posted February 25, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 On the autobiography theme, some people with West Coast connections (Welding perhaps, even Martin Williams by way of gossip?) may have had a less than positive attitude toward Sheldon as a human being that they then brought to his music. Sheldon was something of a hipster wildman at the time (moved in Lenny Bruce's crowd, I believe -- there's a story about Lenny discovering him in bed with Lenny's wife, Honey -- and similar bust-out circles), and it would be easy to link negative attitudes toward such behavior, which damaged or destroyed so many lives (e.g. Lorraine Geller), with the music that guys like Sheldon and (on the East Coast) Tony Fruscella actually made. But whatever your moral compass might be, you've still got to use your ears. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron S Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 (edited) I still say that whatever his reputation was among jazz critics in the '50's, it wasn't helped at all by the somewhat wacky public persona he cultivated in 1960's mass media. But again, you're absolutely correct that his music should be allowed to speak for itself. Edited February 25, 2005 by Ron S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garthsj Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 'I asked Chet Baker about all those deep wrinkles in his face,' said Jack Sheldon. 'He told me they were laugh lines. I told him that nothing could be that funny.' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desertblues Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 Whatever else one may think of Pete Welding, he deserves a lot of credit for recording Maxwell Street blues stalwarts like Robert Nighthawk and John Lee "Hard Luck John" Granderson in the 1960's. He put out some great stuff on Testament Records. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RDK Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 Jack's still a mighty cool guy. He was, in fact, the first jazzer I saw upon moving to L.A. I used to see him regularly at the Money Tree in Toluca Lake, which was great for me as they had no cover and I was fresh out of college and broke. I could nurse a single drink all night as Jack would play and regale the crowd with (often bawdy) stories. He's still playing nearby, but I haven't seen him in several years. This thread makes me want to redresss that asap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenLowe Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 I love Jack Sheldon (anybody remember Run Buddy Run, his old TV series? He's also in that bad movie with James Caan and Better Midler about a touring big band singer). I'm not surprised Martin Williams didn't get him - Larry summed it up perfectly; as good a critic as Williams was, he was probably put off by what he deemed to be Sheldon's casual approach to his art - though that approach masked his quite wonderful abilities as an improviser. There's some great work I have from him on a CD of a tour with Benny Goodman. Now that's a tour that muist have been interesting. Herb Geller also told me a funny story - Herb was visitng the US and went to see Sheldon in a club. Sheldon starts talking between tunes, says: "Visitng tonight is the great alto saxophonist Herb Geller, who has been living in Germany for some time - Heil Hitler, Herb!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harmon Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 Allen, this not a funny story! Jürgen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 While these stories are great, I'm not sure I get the raison d'etre of this thread nor etherbored's post. The premise of the Selects is to use the original liner notes and only have original notes where none existed (i.e. unissued session). That being the case, nothing to get mad at Mosaic about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etherbored Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 CLARIFICATION: the reason is to complain over the original liner notes... -e- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Kart Posted February 25, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 Actually, they're not the original album notes, which as Cuscuna says in the booklet were "brief and superficial," but notes that Cuscuna asked Welding to write for 1989 reissues of this material. I have no beef with Welding, except for what he said about Sheldon here, nor with Cuscuna -- I just wanted to make sure that anyone who was inclined to take Mosaic notes (even Mosaic select notes) as gospel was aware that what's said about Sheldon here strikes some minds as odd and mistaken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
etherbored Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 good GOD...! CORRECTION: the reason is to complain over welding's original reissue liner notes. -e- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brad Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 And that's the way it is, February 25, 2005. This is ..... signing off Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron S Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 If anyone's interested, here's a great page of Jack Sheldon photos and sound/video clips, including the intro to "Run Buddy Run," some video clips of Jack playing the trumpet, video of an interview in which he discusses the differences between his playing and Chet Baker's, and an audio clip of a comedy monologue on being fat that includes a swipe at Leonard Feather. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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