John Norris: A Celebration

Any given jazz scene is populated by people who reside just outside of the public eye, contributing to the community in which they belong in a variety of capacities. Journalists, club owners, record label heads and enthusiastic jazz fans all play vital roles that together constitute the success of a scene. This year Art of Jazz recognizes the paramount role played by CODA Magazine and Sackville Records founder John Norris in a musical celebration of his achievements. After coming to Canada from England, Norris started CODA (originally published as the newsletter for the Traditional Jazz Club of Toronto) in May of 1958. Now in its 50th year, CODA numbers as one of the oldest music magazines in Canada and Norris’s articulate and thoughtful written contributions over the years highlight how insightful a jazz commentator he is. Ten years later, in 1968, Norris, along with Bill Smith, founded Sackville Records. Equally representative of both Norris’s and Smith’s musical tastes, Sackville filled a void in the landscape of recorded jazz by releasing albums from such early masters of the idiom as Wild Bill Davison, Herb Hall, Jay McShann, Doc Cheatham and Willie (The Lion) Smith and the music of then contemporary artists Anthony Braxton, Dave Holland, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, George Lewis (in an ambitious solo trombone album) and the first North American sides of Abdullah Ibrahim. Sackville was also a pioneer in recognizing the homegrown jazz talents we have here in Canada. At a time when scant attention in the jazz world was being paid to anything outside of the United States, Sackville recorded Jim Galloway, Ed Bickert, Fraser MacPherson, Oliver Jones, Phil Nimmons, Wray Downes, Don Thompson and Sonny Greenwich, all of whom are now globally recognized masters of the idiom. Sackville releases At the Garden Party by Ed Bickert and Don Thompson, Nimmons ‘N’ Nine Plus Six’s Atlantic Suite and Fraser MacPherson and Oliver Gannon’s I Didn’t’ Know About You all garnered jazz Juno awards.

BACKGROUND AND CODA

Norris, born West Clandon, Surrey, England on January 9th 1934, became a jazz fan in the summer of 1951 after seeing the film New Orleans. The movie, which featured Woody Herman, Billie Holiday, Mead Lux Lewis and Louis Armstrong’s ensemble (with Kid Ory, Barney Bigard, Charles Beale, Red Callender and Zutty Singleton) inspired Norris to purchase his first jazz record—an Armstrong recording of “Jack Armstrong Blues” on one side and “Endie” (the name of Billie Holiday’s character in the film) on the other. Jazz, threatened only by a competing interest in tennis, became all consuming in Norris’s life. While working for Shell in London, Norris began a jazz society, published a newsletter highlighting jazz events around the city, hosted lunchtime record recitals and a jazz lecture series that featured Sinclair Traill (editor of Jazz Journal), Kenny Graham and George Melly, put on two jazz balls and ran junkets to concerts at Humphrey Lyttelton’s club and Conway Hall.

Norris came to Canada in May of 1956, arriving in Quebec City. He lived in Montreal for one year, where he struck up a friendship with pianist Milton Sealey (who had recently returned from Paris and was working at the Fleurs-de-Lys on the corner of Mountain and Dorchester). Norris also started a jazz society whose membership included Jack Litchfield [who would go on to write Toronto Jazz and The Canadian Jazz Discography 1916-1980].

By June of 1957, Norris had moved to Toronto. Here, he began frequenting the Maison Dore (Asquith Avenue) where trumpeter Mike White’s band had a lengthy engagement. Norris quickly ingratiated himself into Toronto’s jazz scene, getting to know both White and Joe Taylor, who ran the traditional jazz club of Toronto. That club, which at the time brought in such out of town musicians as Art Hodes, was, according to Norris, in need of a newsletter. Joe Taylor agreed that it was a good idea and asked Norris to write it. George Hulme, who Norris knew from England when they both belonged to the Bunk Johnson Appreciation Society, thought up the name. Published originally on May 7, 1958 as the newsletter of the Traditional Jazz Club of Toronto, CODA sold for 10 cents. 200 copies of that inaugural issue were run off at the offices of Sports Ontario, where Taylor worked.

From the beginning, CODA provided an alternative voice in the world of jazz commentary. According to Norris, “when Downbeat put Bobby Darin on the cover, I knew something had to be done.” CODA informed people, first in Toronto and later all around the world, of where they could go to hear jazz music. Eventually, CODA expanded its coverage from traditional jazz to more mainstream and avant garde offerings. At 50, the magazine is still going strong, a testament to the reputation it fostered in those early years with Norris at the helm. A partial list of important contributors who got their start in the pages of the magazine (Bill Smith, Mark Miller, Stuart Broomer, Duck Baker, Larry Cohn, Len Dobbin, Frank Driggs, Pete Welding, Jack Bradley, Art Ballie, Dick Lazenby, Jack Batten, Richard Flohill) is astounding.

In addition to CODA, Norris made his presence on the Toronto jazz scene well-known as a jazz radio host on both CHFI (where he co-hosted a 5-night-a-week program beginning in 1959 with Ben Hafey) and on the CBC. Further, as an instructor at the University of Toronto, Norris taught a jazz history course for twenty-seven years discussing everyone from Charlie Patton to Albert Ayler.

SACKVILLE

In 1968, Norris and Bill Smith, who was now the art director of CODA, formed Sackville Records. Norris had his first taste of the record business one year earlier when the New York pianist Red Richards approached him about producing a recording of The Saints & Sinners (the group Richards co-led with trombonist Vic Dickenson). Richards knew Norris from when that group would play Toronto’s Colonial Tavern. After Buster Bailey left the band to join Armstrong’s ensemble however, the group (which now included Rudy Powell) began a lengthy engagement at Toronto’s Cav-A-Bob (located in the arcade that runs between Richmond and Adelaide streets). Ten Toronto business men fronted the money to make a recording, Norris came on board as producer, Bill Smith took the photographs for the release and Saints & Sinners in Canada (CAV-A-BOB Records) was the result. The making of that album inspired Norris and Smith to form Sackville. Accordingly, the following March, Norris and Smith approached The Jazz Giants—Wild Bill Davison (cornet), Herb Hall (clarinet), Benny Morton (trombone), Claude Hopkins (piano and music director), Arvell Shaw (bass) and Buzzy Drootin (drums)—about making a recording when they were in town performing a two week engagement at The Colonial. The problem was Norris and Smith had little money with which to make an album. They solicited investors however (to the tune of $5000.00), booked Hallmark Studios (located on Toronto’s Sackville Street and the site of Duke Ellington's Canadian recording), hired Roy Smith and his assistant Phil Sheridan to be the engineers and by early 1968 were in the record business.

Key relationships with Kansas City pianist Jay McShann (who came to Canada to appear at Montreal’s Man and His World in 1971), saxophonist Buddy Tate, saxophonist Jim Galloway and (through Smith's Onari Productions) Anthony Braxton, Oliver Lake, George Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell, Julius Hemphill and Joesph Bowie demonstrated just how wide a musical swath was cut by the record label during the 1970s and 1980s. A fruitful relationship with the producers of the Bern Jazz Festival (Switzerland), a successful (and one of the earliest) jazz-themed Christmas album and a musical connection fostered between Sackville and many of the pianists who performed at Toronto’s Café des Copains—leading to some fine solo piano albums by Art Hodes, Keith Ingham, Ronnie Matthews, Harold Mabern, Red Richards and Ralph Sutton—has kept Sackville on the vanguard of recorded jazz for the last forty years.

Like CODA, Sackville Records is still going strong with recent albums by Kenny Davern (his final album), Geoff Keezer, Gene DiNovi, Harold Mabern, Bob Barnard & John Sheridan and Rossano Sportiello. Norris is still as active as he’s ever been on Toronto’s jazz scene. Sackville is issuing a number of important albums in 2008—including a two guitar recording of Ed Bickert and Lorne Lofsky, a Milton Sealey collection, a two-CD set featuring Vic Dickenson and Red Richards and an important discographical addition from Brother John Sellers. Although Norris no longer owns CODA, he still contributes the occasional insightful piece. All of the musicians and speakers involved in this evening’s celebration were chosen by Norris, representing some of his most meaningful musical and personal relationships.