Patti Austin

Patti Austin was born on August 10th 1950 in Harlem, New York, to Gordon Austin, a jazz trombonist. She was raised in Bay Shore, New York on Long Island. Quincy Jones and Dinah Washington referred to themselves as her godparents.
When Austin was four years old, she performed at the Apollo Theater. As a teenager she recorded commercial jingles and worked as a session singer in soul and R&B. She had an R&B hit in 1969 with “Family Tree”. She sang backing vocals on Paul Simon’s 1975 number-one hit “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”. The jazz label CTI released her debut album, End of a Rainbow, in 1976. She sang “The Closer I Get to You” for Tom Browne’s album Browne Sugar, a duet with Michael Jackson for his album Off the Wall, and a duet with George Benson on “Moody’s Mood for Love”.

After singing on Quincy Jones’s album The Dude, she signed a contract with his record label, Qwest, which released Every Home Should Have One with “Baby, Come to Me”, a duet with James Ingram that became a No. 1 hit on the Billboard magazine pop chart. A second duet with Ingram, “How Do You Keep the Music Playing”, appeared on soundtrack to the film Best Friends (1982). Her self-titled 5th album was released in 1984 featuring “It’s Gonna Be Special”, “Rhythm of the Street”, and Shoot the Moon. Her next album, Gettin’ Away with Murder was released in 1985. The singles, “Honey for the Bees”, “Gettin’ Away with Murder” and “The Heat of Heat” were hit singles. Her final album for Qwest, The Real Me contained versions of jazz standards. Austin moved on to GRP for four releases, including Love Is Gonna Getcha, which contained the singles “Good in Love” and “Through the Test of Time”.

A 2007 release with the band and arranger Michael Abene, Avant Gershwin, earned her the Grammy award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance.