Music to Listen to Red Norvo By

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