Jack Sheldon, the stand-out jazz trumpeter and affable Merv Griffin sidekick whose gave voice to the Schoolhouse Rock classics I’m Just a Bill and Conjunction Junction, has died. He was 88.
Sheldon’s face and name were most recognizable to fans of The Merv Griffin Show thanks to his 16-year sidekick stint (1962-1978) but his trumpeting reached its greatest acclaim via the big screen with the forlorn Oscar- and Grammy-winning song The Shadow of Your Smile from The Sandpiper (1965).
Sheldon’s voice, however, became a signature part of Saturday morning cartoons for years thanks to two beloved installments of the oft-repeated Schoolhouse Rock educational series of animated shorts. The ABC series was ramping up its second season when it brought Sheldon in and the charismatic jazzman delivered winning performances both as the dedicated train conductor from Conjunction Junction (1974) and lonely piece of proposed legislation in the civics-minded I’m Just a Bill. (1975).
The Schoolhouse Rock work would put Sheldon in the ear of several generations of TV-watching youngsters and open up an unexpected legacy. Sheldon participated in a 2002 revival of the educational brand and also playfully parodied it in episodes of The Simpsons and Johnny Bravo.
Sheldon was born November 30, 1931, in Jacksonville, Florida, but he first found fame on the far side of Interstate 10 as a noted player in the West Coast jazz movement of the 1950s. Sheldon performed and recorded with the likes of Stan Kenton, Art Pepper, Gerry Mulligan, and Curtis Counce.