A leading authority on jazz, Norris wrote extensively for Coda through to the 1990s, and contributed to the magazines Jazz Journal, Jazz Monthly, Jazz News, and Melody Maker (all of London), Down Beat (Chicago), International Musician (New York), and Music Scene and Canadian Composer (Toronto). He was jazz critic for the Globe and Mail in 1967, contributed to the Toronto Telegram and the Toronto Daily Star, and was a radio jazz program host and/or writer 1958-61 on Toronto radio station CHFI, and in the 1960s and early 1970s on the CBC (eg, "Strictly Jazz" and "That Midnight Jazz"). He prepared a jazz history series broadcast on the CBC's "Jazz Radio-Canada" in the summer of 1978. In the early 1980s, he also acted as booking agent, eg for Café des Copains.
Norris produced or co-produced many albums for Sackville Recordings, a label he, Smith, and others established in 1968 in Toronto.