Norma Winstone
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Norma Winstone MBE |
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Winstone in 2007
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Norma Short |
| Born |
23 September 1941 Bow, London, United Kingdom |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, lyricist |
| Years active | 1960s-present |
| Website | www |
Norma Ann Winstone MBE (born 23 September 1941) is a British jazz singer and lyricist. In a career spanning more than 40 years she is best known for her wordless improvisations.
Born as Norma Short in Bow, East London, she began singing in bands around Dagenham in the early 1960s, before joining Michael Garrick's band in 1968. Her first recording came the following year, with Joe Harriott. In 1971 she was voted top singer in the Melody Maker Jazz Poll. She recorded the album Edge of Time under her own name in 1972. Winstone contributed vocals to Ian Carr's Nucleus on that band's 1973 release Labyrinth, a jazz-rock concept album based on the Greek myth about the Minotaur.
Winstone has worked with many major European musicians and visiting Americans, as well as with most of her peers in British jazz, including Garrick, John Surman, Michael Gibbs, Mike Westbrook and her former husband, the pianist John Taylor. With Taylor and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler she performed and recorded three albums for ECM as a member of the trio Azimuth between 1977 and 1980; their CD How It Was Then… Never Again was given four stars by Down Beat magazine. In addition she made an album with the American pianist Jimmy Rowles (Well Kept Secret, 1993).
With Azimuth
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