Chris Norton
Ask trumpeter and vocalist Chris Norton what an audience should expect when he takes the stage and he describes something of a roller coaster – introspective music at one extreme, exhilarating showmanship and sheer intensity at the other.
“We go so far in both directions,” he says. That swing between introspection and exuberance is what Norton is known for – indeed, what he does best – and he’s bringing it to the Highlands Performing Arts Center on November 1.
“You can hear a pin drop on some songs, and on others everyone’s tapping their toes, clapping along, singing.”
Norton knows something about holding a room. He has performed for President Obama, several times for Bill and Hillary Clinton, and at President Biden’s granddaughter’s White House wedding, a night he’s still bound by a nondisclosure agreement and unable to discuss.
But what seems to matter most to him is more elemental: what happens between the musicians and the people listening.
He’ll arrive with his longtime quintet, featuring Norton on trumpet and vocals alongside piano, guitar, bass, and drums. After roughly 15 years and 1,500 gigs together, he says the musicians are “like my brothers.”
For Highlands, expect traditional jazz leaning toward Louis Armstrong and Louis Prima, the ballads of Tony Bennett and some early Ray Charles Rhythm and Blues.
There will be a set list, but Norton readily admits he may “jam on the brakes and do a U-turn” if the room’s energy takes him elsewhere. His band knows to follow.
Born in Greensboro, with family roots in Asheville, Norton later moved to Florida, where he went to high school and began working professionally as a musician.
It will be his first time performing in Highlands, and he’s hoping some of that Asheville family, aunts, uncles, cousins, might make the drive.
He was a trumpet player first; singing arrived almost by accident, when he auditioned for a jazz club in St. Augustine and was asked if he sang. Norton said yes, although he had never sung for another human being. He launched into “Bye Bye Blackbird” and got the job.
But the trumpet remains something different. “My trumpet is my release,” he says. After once injuring his lip and being unable to play, Norton found it “torture” to stand singing while his bandmates improvised without him. “My art is playing trumpet.”
Eventually, he sold everything he owned, boarded an Amtrak train, and moved to New York, a city he had never even visited. At his first jazz concert there, Norton sat in the front row at Smoke listening to organist Dr. Lonnie Smith. Smith looked directly at the young musician and played a solo to him.
“He spoke to my soul.” Norton never forgot the encounter, or the intimacy of a musician directing something so personal toward a single listener. New York also broadened the music itself. Norton had gravitated toward Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, and hard bop, but after sitting in with a traditional jazz band and having “the most fun I’d ever had in my life,” he began delving into Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima, Fats Waller, and Sidney Bechet. He made trips down to New Orleans to listen to the bands there and sit in with them.
Touring through Europe revealed something else. Norton watched it reach people across ages and cultures, a five-year-old, a 25-year-old Goth, an 80-year-old. It was music, he realized, that didn’t require an education in jazz to enter.
“That music spoke to people,” he says.
It still does. Today Norton carries that instinct onto his own stage. Rather than closing his eyes when he sings, he searches out faces in the audience.
“I’m actually kind of an extrovert and sing to people,” he says. “In a room of 300, we are going to have a moment.” Those moments can be delicate. Norton loves the “tightrope” of a ballad, where every inflection matters. Or they can be almost athletic.
“I am sweating. I am pouring my heart out,” he says.
Then comes silence.
After a performance, Norton often disappears for 20 minutes, finding a stairwell where he can sit alone, let his body cool, and consider what has just passed between himself and a roomful of strangers. He became emotional describing those minutes during our conversation.
“I’m so lucky to be able to do it,” he says, “to feel that and to be able to reflect. Just sharing, like, a moment with other people that I don’t even know.”
On November 1, those strangers will be in Highlands.
Chris Norton performs Sunday, November 1, at 4:00 P.M. on the Main Stage at the Highlands Performing Arts Center. Reserved seating. For tickets and information, visit highlandsperformingarts.com.
Favorites Count: 0