Moving LVM volume?

[Frank Miles <fpm@u.washington.edu>]

I recently added a new hard drive to my home system.  I decided to use it
to create an all-new bootable 'jessie' system.  I created a partition 
table that I thought would be flexible:
   /dev/sdb1         /   (root) {7G}
   /dev/sdb2         /swap       {4GB}
   /dev/sdb3         /oldjunk    {1G}
   /dev/sdb4  extended      {remainder}
   /dev/sdb5     LVM        {one large volume}

Most of the partitions- /usr, /home, /var, ... were in LVM2.

What I've learned since then is that /usr seems to have special
status, and probably shouldn't be part of LVM as certain tasks
early in the boot process can't seem to access the interior of
LVM.

I've moved 'oldjunk' into the LVM, and want to expand this
partition to become the new /usr.  I've shrunk the LVM, but
the freed space is all at the far end of the LVM.  I have
been unable to move it towards the end of the disk space,
so I can expand /dev/sdb3.  gparted, resize2fs, pvmove,...
(running from a CDROM-based rescue disk) have all failed.

Is there some method that I've overlooked?

   TIA!
   -Frank