IN Norma Winstone’s childhood home, in the borough of Bow in London’s tough East End, music mattered a lot.

Her father played piano by ear and loved Fats Waller.

Norma’s mother had a lovely, rich voice while Frank Sinatra was a big family favourite.

“I was seven when I saw Lena Horne perform The Lady and the Tramp in the 1948 film, Words and Music, and I asked mum if I could learn the songs, and that was the start of it,” said Winstone, who performs at this weekend’s Ribble Valley Jazz Festival with jazz super group Norma Winstone and the Printmakers.

“I’d sing at family get-togethers and sometimes the British Legion, but I was very shy and awkward. I didn’t enjoy it one bit.

“I didn’t really have a plan, I just wanted to sing.

“Looking back, I really couldn’t see, as a teenager, how I could get to any point where I could perform professionally.”

Later, though, she sang in the boisterous public houses of Bow, Bermondsey, and Bethnal Green, and was at school with actor Dudley Moore in Dagenham.

“It was a close community in the 1960s, but quite a few pubs featured jazz sessions, they were my formative years in places like The Lilliput pub in Bermondsey.

“It was a hard learning curve. I’d go down and see who was playing, and ask if I could sing.

“I’d improvise and that gave me the confidence and belief.

“I then began to understand how it all worked.”

She recalled Dudley Moore playing the church organ at morning assembly, adding: ‘All the girls were in love with him – including me.

“I got his autograph, and even when he became very famous he would come back to the school and play that old church organ.”

Winstone, though, quickly graduated to playing with the world’s leading jazz artists - and today she is celebrated as one of Britain’s most admired jazz vocalists.

One of the stars of Gilles Peterson’s Jazz Britannia TV programme, she celebrated her 75th birthday last year, still at the peak of her form, with a stirring concert at the London Jazz Festival.

Winstone, who recorded her first songs for the BBC 50 years ago this month and received the MBE for her services to music, added: “Age is a state of mind, and good music is ageless too.

“I don’t feel any different now than I did when I was 20. Music can bring you joyous moments and sad ones too.

“Some of the musicians in The Printmakers are young, but it is a precious thing when you find people with whom you don’t have to discuss anything and playing together just works.”

The group is led by Nikki Iles, one of the foremost contemporary British jazz musicians.

“Norma’s a national treasure,” she said. “She was at the cutting edge of the jazz sound of the Sixties and Seventies, and remains a truly remarkable talent.”

Norma Winstone and the Printmakers, Clitheroe Grand, Sunday, April 30, 01200 421599. The Ribble Valley Jazz Festival runs from today until Monday. www.rvjazzandblues.co.uk