Music to Listen to Red Norvo By

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This 1957 session showed how far vibraphonist Red Norvo could spread his wings. He had trekked through the Swing Era, notably playing alongside Benny Goodman on a rare bass clarinet excursion in 1933, and moving on 11 years later to help assemble a crack swing-to-bop session that featured Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Teddy Wilson. Here Norvo plays alongside some of the greats in the then-maturing cool-jazz movement. Drummer Shelly Manne keeps Norvo rhythmically involved but also pushes him forward into a harmonic role with guitarist Barney Kessel. Clarinetist Bill Smith and flutist Buddy Collette are let loose to set textural maps around the tunes, the centerpiece of which is Smith's 20-minute "Divertimento." Sounding chamberesque and swinging, Smith's suite is indicative of West Coast extensions of tonality and form. The music is complex and winding, yet always bringing out a widened range from Norvo, who plays low-end vibe parts in slow, bluesy motion and then plinks as rapidly as he did on the classic The Red Norvo Trio with Tal Farlow and Charles Mingus. --Andrew Bartlett

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