Walter Norris

Walter Norris was an excellent pianist, a virtuoso whose improvisations could possibly be both highly complex harmonically yet often remain melodic. He’d have already been better known within the U.S. if he previously not spent therefore enough time in Germany. Norris caused Howard Williams in Arkansas (1944-1950) as an adolescent, is at Houston with Jimmy Ford (1952-1953), led his very own trio in NEVADA (1953-1954), and settled in LA. He was on a number of sessions through the last mentioned half of the 1950s, especially with Jack port Sheldon, Frank Rosolino, and Natural herb Geller, furthermore to Ornette Coleman’s initial record (1958); he do his better to match the last mentioned placing, but (apart from Paul Bley on the Hillcrest Membership) it had been the last period for many years that Coleman would work with a pianist. The music movie director from the Playboy Membership during 1963-1970, Norris was using the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra during 1974-1976. Following a stay static in Scandinavia and a short stint with Charles Mingus, Norris shifted to Berlin in 1977, where he trained and performed for the rest of his lifestyle in music. Within the 1990s, Walter Norris stopped at the U.S. many times, documenting schedules for Concord and exhibiting his amazing musical development of the prior twenty years. But he often came back to his house in Berlin, where he passed away on Oct 29, 2011, 8 weeks ahead of what could have been his 80th birthday.