Patti Austin, veteran going strong

Patti Austin has made a living from singing for more than 50 years, since her professional debut at age 5.

At 58, she's still going, already established as the commercial jingle queen of the 1970s and '80s and one of the architects of smooth jazz with Quincy Jones. "Baby Come to Me," her memorable duet with James Ingraham, produced a No. 1 pop hit in 1982.

Over the last decade, Austin has gone back to her jazz roots, singing tunes from the Great American Songbook. Her 2002 CD, For Ella, a tribute to the great Ella Fitzgerald, received a Grammy nomination. And on her latest album, Avant Gershwin, she belts it out Broadway style, interpreting the music of George and Ira Gershwin.

Austin makes her Kimmel Center debut, with the Ramsey Lewis Trio, at 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

Inquirer: Avant Gershwin is a departure from the "smooth jazz" sound that is most recognizable to your fans.

Patti Austin: I never stopped singing jazz and standards. This is the music I grew up singing at the time the music was being made. That's what separates me from the people who are trying to do this stuff.

Inquirer: For Ella was brilliant. You definitely sing with some of her inflections. Were you influenced by her?

P.A.: No, I really wasn't. There was a particular way you sang a Cole Porter or a Gershwin tune, which was to sound as much like an instrument as you could. Dizzy [Gillespie] taught Ella to scat on his trumpet. Miles [Davis] is a big influence on how I sound.

Inquirer: You grew up in Harlem. Your godfather is Quincy Jones, your godmother was Dinah Washington. You grew up among jazz royalty.

P.A.: My dad [Gordon Austin] was a jazz musician. He was a trombonist who worked with Lena Horne, Dinah and Billy Eckstine, and played with Earl "Fatha" Hines. My father loved music. You'd come in the house and hear Stravinsky's Firebird and Patsy Cline's "Crazy." . . . Then you'd hear Mahalia Jackson. I grew up thinking music was music.

Inquirer: I couldn't help noticing on the cover of your CD that your shoulder blades are sticking out. You've lost a lot of weight!

P.A.: I had gastric bypass surgery [in 2004] and I'm damn proud of it! I went from 268 pounds to 140, from size 26-28 to size 6-8. I don't have to shop at "Lane Giant" anymore!

Inquirer: Why did you have the surgery rather than try to lose the weight yourself?

P.A.: I was getting ready to have surgery on my knee and my doctor intervened. He told me I was going to have [the bypass]. I said, "But don't you have to be more than 100 pounds overweight?' Duh. That was the state of denial I was in.

I didn't have much choice. My choices were that I had diabetes type II and was menopausal. My mother, who I cared for in the last years of life, had suffered a series of strokes, so I watched her die a slow, painful death. My doctor told me if I didn't have it, I'd be sitting in a chair next to Luther [Vandross, who died of complications from a massive stroke in 2005].

Inquirer: Do you think there's a stigma associated with gastric bypass surgery?

P.A.: Of course there is. Oprah's trying to terrorize everybody because she's against it, and Star [Jones] is trying to make it shameful. I had this done through a credible hospital and went through months of therapy and nutrition classes. . . . I have to work out like everybody else.

Inquirer: Will you be singing with an orchestra when you're in Philadelphia?

P.A.: No, it will be probably be with a trio or a quartet. When I start performing this year in Europe, I'll be doing it different ways, in different configurations. That's the magnificence of the music. It can be done in many different ways.

Inquirer: You have said the weight loss has taken some of the pressure off your diaphragm. It must have made you a better singer. You sound powerful.

P.A.: Everybody says that. There's a way this type of music is supposed to be done. I could no more do what Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera do - well, I could, but I don't want to - any more than they could do what I do. At least, not with the same amount of feeling behind it.