Norman Connors grew up in Philadelphia, in the same neighbourhood as Bill Cosby, and was drawn to jazz early enough that his first models were local: the drummer Lex Humphries, and the younger brother of Jazz Messengers bassist Spanky DeBrest. He met Miles Davis at 13, in 1960. While still in middle school he sat in for Elvin Jones at a John Coltrane performance. He studied music at Temple University and at Juilliard.

His recording career began in 1967, at 20, on Archie Shepp's The Magic of Ju-Ju for Impulse!. For the next several years he held the drum chair in Pharoah Sanders' band, appearing on Black Unity and Live at the East (1972), Wisdom Through Music and Village of the Pharoahs (1973) and Love in Us All (1974). He also played in the Sam Rivers Trio, on Streams (1973) and Hues (1974).

His first album as a leader, Dance of Magic, came out on Cobblestone in 1972, when he was 25. The band was Herbie Hancock on piano and Fender Rhodes, Stanley Clarke on bass, Gary Bartz on alto and soprano saxophone, Carlos Garnett on tenor and soprano, Eddie Henderson on trumpet and Art Webb on flute. Dark of Light followed in 1973, adding Cecil McBee and Buster Williams on bass and Dee Dee Bridgewater on vocals. Love from the Sun (1974), his first for Buddah, brought in Hubert Laws on flute and is the last of his records that belongs entirely to jazz.

Two things changed in the mid-1970s, and they were the same change. Connors moved from Cobblestone up to Buddah proper, and Buddah made him the label's A&R manager. From then on his own records were built around guest vocalists he found and signed himself, and the commercial turn in his catalogue ran in parallel with his day job.

Slewfoot (1974) reached No. 51 on the R&B albums chart and introduced Jean Carn. Saturday Night Special (1975) went to No. 150 pop and No. 35 R&B and produced "Valentine Love," his first chart single, No. 10 R&B, a duet between Michael Henderson and Carn. Then, in 1975, while assembling his next record, Connors heard about a singer working a club on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He went to see her after a Jon Lucien concert at Carnegie Hall and offered her the female vocal chair. The singer was Phyllis Hyman, and the record was You Are My Starship.

Released on Buddah in 1976, You Are My Starship reached No. 39 on the Billboard 200 and No. 5 R&B and was certified gold by the RIAA. Its title track, sung by Michael Henderson, went to No. 27 pop and No. 4 R&B. "We Both Need Each Other," a Henderson and Hyman duet, reached No. 23 R&B, and Hyman's "Betcha by Golly Wow" reached No. 29. The session personnel is a map of the genre in miniature: Lee Ritenour on second guitar, Tom Scott on melodica, Gary Bartz on saxophones, Noel Pointer and John Blake on violins, Anthony Jackson on bass, Onaje Allan Gumbs on Fender Rhodes and ARP strings, Ian Underwood on Mini-Moog, Don Alias on congas, Bernie Grundman mastering. The album closes with a cover of Pharoah Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan."

Romantic Journey (1977) reached No. 94 pop and No. 24 R&B and carried "Once I've Been There," No. 16 R&B and No. 30 on the dance chart. He then moved to Arista for This Is Your Life (1977, No. 68 pop and No. 20 R&B), on which Pharoah Sanders takes a tenor solo alongside Los Angeles session players including Richard Tee, Bobby Lyle, Lee Ritenour, David T. Walker, Jay Graydon and James Gadson, with McKinley Jackson arranging and conducting. Some editions bill the record to Norman Connors & the Starship Orchestra.

In 1978 the relationship with Pharoah Sanders reversed. Arista released Sanders' Love Will Find a Way, produced by Connors for Norman Connors Productions, Inc., with Connors also on timpani, drums, percussion and gongs. Six years earlier he had been the drummer in Sanders' band.

Invitation (1979) reached No. 34 R&B, with Marion Meadows on woodwinds and the Jones Girls singing behind Miss Adaritha. Take It to the Limit (1980) went to No. 30 R&B; its title track reached No. 28 R&B and "Melancholy Fire," which introduced Glenn Jones, reached No. 20. The 12" single paired the title track with an instrumental reading of Steely Dan's "Black Cow," written by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Mr. C (1981), with Nathan East on bass and Marion Meadows soloing, closed the Arista run.

Through the 1980s and 1990s Connors worked increasingly as a producer for other artists. He produced Phyllis Hyman's Can't We Fall in Love Again? (Arista, 1981), which reached No. 57 pop and No. 11 R&B, as its main producer, with Chuck Jackson brought in to mix and complete most tracks. He produced Jean Carn's Sweet and Wonderful (1981) and Trust Me (1982), Angela Bofill's Intuition (1988), Melba Moore's Soul Exposed (1990), Lonnie Liston Smith's Love Goddess (1990), Marion Meadows' Keep It Right There (1992) and Forbidden Fruit (1994), Norman Brown's debut Just Between Us (1992) and Peabo Bryson's Missing You (2007), and co-produced Bobby Lyle's Ivory Dreams (1989).

His own recording continued. Passion (Capitol, 1988) reached No. 39 R&B behind "I Am Your Melody," sung by Spencer Harrison, and introduced Gabrielle Goodman. Remember Who You Are (MoJazz, 1993) reached No. 70 R&B and No. 19 Contemporary Jazz, its title single sung by Phyllis Hyman. Easy Living followed on MoJazz in 1996, Eternity on The Right Stuff in 2000 (No. 18 Jazz, No. 13 Contemporary Jazz) and Star Power on Shanachie in 2009 (No. 13 Jazz, No. 6 Contemporary Jazz).

He appeared on Guru's Jazzmatazz Volume II (The New Reality) in 1995, and his 1970s Buddah and Arista sides have been sampled and reissued steadily since. TV One devoted an episode of Unsung to him on October 30, 2022. He continues to tour with the Starship Orchestra, with a date announced for December 3, 2026 featuring Bobby Lyle, Glenn Jones and Marva King.

Connors is a groove drummer rather than a soloist, and the shape of his career follows from that. His early models were Elvin Jones, whose chair he sat in as a schoolboy, and the Philadelphia drummer Lex Humphries. The Shepp and Sanders years taught him to hold long modal forms open without cluttering them, and that restraint carried directly into the ballad records: on "You Are My Starship" the drums are barely doing anything, and the whole arrangement rests on them.

What separates him from the smooth-jazz artists he is sometimes filed alongside is that he never stopped putting jazz material on commercial records. Saturday Night Special covers Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage" and Jobim's "Dindi." You Are My Starship, his gold album, closes with Pharoah Sanders' "The Creator Has a Master Plan." Romantic Journey includes Sanders' "Thembi." The strings and the vocalists are the delivery system, not the substance.

His second instrument, effectively, was A&R. As Buddah's A&R manager and later as an independent producer he built a house style around a warm rhythm section, a full string and horn chart from McKinley Jackson or Onaje Allan Gumbs, and a singer he had personally found. Phyllis Hyman, Michael Henderson, Jean Carn, Glenn Jones, Gabrielle Goodman, Norman Brown and Marion Meadows all reached a wide audience first on a Norman Connors record.