Patti Austin

Patti Austin’s keen interest in being a total entertainer started when she stepped onto the stage of the world-famous Apollo Theater in Harlem at the age of four at the urging of music legend Dinah Washington. The daughter of jazz trombonist Gordon Austin, she was a recording star in her teens, achieving her first chart success in 1969 with “The Family Tree,” a Top 50 R&B single.

During the 1970s, Austin was the queen of the New York session scene; her voice was heard behind everyone from Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, James Brown, and Joe Cocker to Bette Midler, Roberta Flack, Luther Vandross, and Diana Ross, as well as on countless memorable commercial jingles. After a series of much-acclaimed albums for CTI Records, Austin signed with her godfather Quincy Jones’s Qwest label and began achieving mainstream success on an international level thanks to the GRAMMY^®-nominated duet with James Ingram, “Baby Come To Me,” and their follow-up duet, the Oscar-nominated “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” She also appeared on albums with Jones, including his best-selling Stuff Like That, his GRAMMY^®-winning classic The Dude, and From Q With Love Volumes 1 & 2. 

The GRAMMY^®-nominated For Ella album opened up new doors for Austin as a performer, and her embrace by the jazz world was further cemented with her GRAMMY^®-winning album Avant Gershwin. Now, after more than two decades of touring, her take on the classic American Songbook has expanded Austin’s appeal and garnered standing ovations all over the United States and Europe, and her tour of Australia with the great James Morrison secured an ongoing love affair between Austin and Australian music lovers. April 2023 brought For Ella 2, a new release celebrating the great Ella Fitzgerald in Austin’s unique song storytelling style.

Continuing to cover all her music bases, Austin and Trevor Lawrence Jr. launched their groundbreaking “Bebop to Hip Hop” show and received standing ovations at the Kennedy Center on New Year’s Eve. And soon, Austin’s critically-acclaimed Pop/R&B release Sound Advice will yield a sequel, Sound Advice 2, further demonstrating her artistic versatility. Through “The Over My Shoulder Foundation,” Austin continues her philanthropic work and mentorship, and she looks forward to many future tour dates to delight fans around the world.