John Norris died yesterday in Toronto at the age of 76. He was the founder of the Canadian jazz magazine Coda, and of Sackville Records. Norris was a benevolent and resolutely independent spirit in music north of the border. He steadfastly resisted

technological demands of not only the 21st century but also many of the 20th. To the frequent frustration of his correspondents, he eschewed both computers and fax machines, but he somehow managed to keep up with music and produce valuable recordings. His roster of Sackville artists was varied. It included Ed Bickert, Don Thompson, Benny Carter, Terry Clarke, Julius Hemphill, Ben Webster, Dick Wellstood, Archie Shepp, Ralph Sutton, Jay McShann, Ronnie Matthews, Geoff Keezer and Junior Mance, to name a very few.

John Norris was the stuff of legends, a CV that should frighten those standing in his shadow. Back in the 70's Winnipeg, the Norris legacy set down when I was a babe in arms was still the gold standard of jazz record stores that I could only ever hope to be the "best jazz store west of" and only dare be a peer empressario in my wildest flights of fantasy. Even by the 80's when Sams Upstairs was part of every payday ritual there were still the remnants of an earlier Age of Enlightenment in those stacks, gems unbelievable in today's world of Towers and HMV bins. John Norris was here writ across the bins like G.I. graffitti.

John Norris. Critic, editor, broadcaster, promoter, record producer, b West Clandon, Surrey, England, 9 Jun 1934. While a clerk in London, he operated his first jazz club. Moving to Canada, he operated the Montreal Traditional Jazz Society 1956-7. In 1957 he settled in Toronto, where he operated the Traditional Jazz Club of Toronto, opened the Galleon jazz club, and promoted concerts. In 1958 he established the magazine Coda, serving until 1976 as editor and thereafter (with Bill Smith) as co-publisher. Norris was the manager 1962-8 of the jazz department of the Sam the Record Man store on Yonge St., Toronto, and developed there one of the most extensive stocks of jazz recordings in the world, rivalled later by the combined retail and mail-order operation of the Jazz and Blues Centre, which Norris and Smith established in 1970.