On their third album for ECM, following the Grammy nominated Distances (2007) and Stories Yet To Tell (2009), British jazz vocalist Norma Winstone, Italian pianist Glauco Venier and German reeds player Klaus Gesing serve up another wonderfully eclectic collection. While it might not be such a surprise to see ‘Bein’ Green' – the children's song is now pretty much a jazz standard – Madonna's ‘Live To Tell’ is certainly some distance from the Great American Songbook. The set also encompasses material as disparate as Tom Waits (‘San Diego Serenade’, first recorded on the trio's now deleted debut, Chamber Music), Nick Drake (‘Time Of No Reply’), Fred Neil (‘Everybody's Talkin”) and Italian folk song (‘Gust Da Essi Viva’ and ‘Ator Ator’). And yet, in the hands of this trio, it all sounds entirely seamless. Elements from folk music, classical music and jazz are juxtaposed and combined in infinitely subtle ways to forge the group's signature sound. Recorded in the Auditorio Radiotelevisione Svizzera, Lugano, and produced by Manfred Eicher, the trio's sense of space, coupled with a powerful lyricism, creates a unique conversational quality. On Ralph Towner's ‘A Breath Away’, Gesing's ‘High Places’ and elsewhere, Winstone confirms her position as one of the great jazz lyricists, the vocal line always enhanced by Gesing's innovative bass clarinet work and Venier's adventurous harmonisations.

Jazzwise spoke to Norma Winstone about the album

The album sounds terrific. How was it recorded?

We set up more or less as if we were going to do a concert. Manfred [Eicher] said ‘I rather you didn't wear headphones.’ I thought, well, that's going to be impossible – how can I sing without hearing my voice coming back? It must be the sound in that room, but I didn't need a monitor or headphones. And maybe it made me sing a bit differently. Perhaps I had to give a little more.

Several of the pieces have associations with film. Do you often have a filmic sense when writing lyrics?

I think I do. I have to be grabbed by a piece of music to write lyrics. It's not so much evoking a scene as a feeling.

You pen new lyrics to another Ralph Towner tune, ‘A Breath Away’. What is it that draws you to Ralph's music?

I've got a whole bunch of Ralph's tunes, which on and off, I'm trying to write lyrics to. I like the leaps in it. And his music has a special kind of mood, especially when he plays it.

It's amazing how many jazz artists have covered ‘Bein’ Green'.

I know. And I wondered whether we should because when I heard Shirley Horn sing it I thought, oh God, there's no point – that's the definitive version. But Klaus really wanted to do it, so we did. And I think it came out nicely.

Do you think the trio's sound has evolved since its 2003 debut?

I think it has. Klaus plays more bass clarinet now and he's really got into that instrument. And it makes such a difference to the overall sound. We're now aware of the kind of roles we can play. But there's been very little discussion about it – it somehow just happens.