For Jack Sheldon, a beacon for some sixty years on the West Coast jazz scene, 2008 is turning out to be a very good year. At 76, the celebrated trumpet player, vocalist, bandleader and TV personality, is the subject of a new documentary film, while his jazz career continues to accelerate.

He was there when the so-called West Coast Jazz–a cooled-down version of hard bop–was born. He calls himself a “survivor” from the period. “Only a few of us are left. Bud Shank is another,” he says. Sheldon and alto saxophonist Shank played together in the early fifties at the Lighthouse, the incubator for the West Coast sound. Along with Sheldon and Shank, the line-up at the time was pianist Claude Williamson, bassist Howard Rumsey and drummer Stan Levey…