[Dixielandjazz] Patti Austin - From Pop to Jazz

[Stephen G Barbone]

Since 2006 or so, Patti Austin has been performing jazz and American  
Songbook. Also giving master classes on Gershwin. I hope this is a  
trend that other pop singers will follow.
Steve Barbone
www.barbonestreet.com
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband
May 30, 2008 - NY TIMES - By STEPHEN HOLDENB
Classic Patti Austin, Newly Focused on Swing and Jazz
For years Patti Austin has struggled with the mixed blessing of having  
a voice that is too perfect. Strong and flexible, with a velvety  
texture and immaculately rounded tones complemented by impeccable  
enunciation, it is a quintessential session singer’s voice because it  
is not instantly identifiable when heard singing backup vocals or  
commercials. On Wednesday evening at the Rose Theater, where Ms.  
Austin headlined Jazz at Lincoln Center’s annual spring gala benefit,  
all the hallmarks of her musical personality were in place — but with  
a difference.

That difference was the concert’s focus on swing and jazz. As Ms.  
Austin has shifted her musical direction from glossy pop-soul toward  
jazz, her identity as a vocal technician in the tradition of Ella  
Fitzgerald has sharpened. Her recent Grammy Award-winning album,  
“Avant Gershwin” (Rendezvous Entertainment), is a swing recording with  
the WDR Big Band that solidifies her emerging identity.

On the record the softened brass tones in Ms. Austin’s voice are  
complemented by Michael Abene’s dense, brawling horn arrangements. The  
record is “avant” in the sense that the music employs jostling,  
closely harmonized brass choruses that flirt with dissonance but are  
slightly more conservative than Stan Kenton. On Wednesday 18 musicians  
led by Mike Ricchiuti, including five trumpets, five saxophones, four  
trombones and one cheesy sounding synthesizer, played with a gusto  
that was matched by Ms. Austin’s confident, full-bodied performances.

Midway through the concert Ms. Austin praised the “elasticity” of  
Gershwin’s music, meaning how easily these classic songs are stretched  
and bent from genre to genre without losing their character. A primary  
example was “Swanee,” which she plucked out of its usual niche as an  
Al Jolson-Judy Garlandvaudeville turn and treated as a rip-roaring  
swing celebration of the South.

Ballads were scarce in a concert that emphasized the vitality of  
Gershwin’s music. The most demanding segment was an extended medley  
from “Porgy and Bess” that among other songs included “A Woman Is a  
Sometime Thing,” “Summertime” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” divested  
of their semioperatic trappings.

Ms. Austin’s tentative scat singing here and there abruptly jerked  
into virtuosic focus with a full-blast treatment of “Oh! Lady Be  
Good!” offered as a tribute to Fitzgerald. Together Ms. Austin, the  
band and a special guest, Wynton Marsalis on trumpet, unleashed a  
complex, exhilarating musical barrage that sustained an ideal blend of  
spontaneity and teamwork.