Jazz Reviews : Walter Norris Is Cookin’ at Culver City Bakery

The Bakery, a large new room at 3221 Hutchison Ave. in Culver City where singer Ruth Price will produce concert-style presentations, was the scene Sunday evening of an extraordinary recital by the pianist Walter Norris.

Had he not been based in Berlin since 1977, where he is a teacher, Norris by now might well have been acclaimed as a world-class virtuoso.

Possessed of a demonic technique and a rare harmonic imagination, he divides his time between the original works, mocked by the ever-shifting iridescence of his chordal concepts, and versions of standard tunes that he elevates to new levels of sophistication.

One should not expect from Norris any hint of bop, stride, swing or any other standard idiom, but rather the visionary, impressionistic products of an imagination that may owe more to Debussy or Ravel than to Tatum or Waller.

Typical are such pieces as his own “Thumbs Out” or “Waltz for Walt,” written by Minako Tanahashi-Tokuyama, who studied with him in Berlin.

More accessible for some listeners were “ ‘Round Midnight,” with its rococo runs and counterpunches, and a florid rubato version of John Coltrane’s “Naima.”

There were moments when Norris needed to loosen up a little; his elaborations on “All the Things You Are” would have benefited had he allowed this 50-year-old jazz standard to swing. Nor did it seem necessary to pluck at the piano strings, an effect that almost never works.

Nevertheless, Norris is a consummate artist whose absence from these shores, except for the occasional visit to record an album, has established him as the music world’s most unjustly ignored expatriate.