A Magical day for Patti Austin by Grammy winner Patti Austin
[This is a note provided to us by Patti following her win for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for her album Avant Gershwin]
(February 11, 2008) Jazz lives and people love it ...they just need the opportunity to hear it. They will pay for it...it just needs to be made important on a media level and the Grammy's certainly help that along.
The real joy about yesterday was the magical harmony around the award for me --
A Magical day for Patti Austin by Grammy winner Patti Austin
[This is a note provided to us by Patti following her win for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for her album Avant Gershwin]
(February 11, 2008) Jazz lives and people love it ...they just need the opportunity to hear it. They will pay for it...it just needs to be made important on a media level and the Grammy's certainly help that along.
The real joy about yesterday was the magical harmony around the award for me --
Herbie (Hancock) won and then Siedah (Garrett) won. I had already reconciled myself to the fact that I was not going to win. 8 nominations before and surely this would be just another "almost there" moment. But the most fun was having a good time sharing these artistic victories with friends like Herbie and Siedah who have been at it so long reaching for higher and higher levels of artistry without concern for material reward.
I thought it would be fun to really go for it this time with this project because I felt that the work of the entire team deserved to be recognized. So I decided when Tom Estey, our amazing PR person said let's go and let the world know who Patti Austin really is and how that connects to the art she delivers, I said let's go I will do it all.
There's great joy in seeing hard work pay off. Everyone put so much into this project, especially Rendezvous music, the WDR Big Band of Cologne Germany and especially,
Michael Abene. Although a great friend of John Clayton and collaborator with him many times, I am still lamenting the loss by Michael Abene, the arranger for Avant Gershwin who put his heart and soul into giving this great Gershwin music a fresh even inspirational treatment.
I was sitting there and when they said Avant I thought who is that? What fun to have worked for this. A conscious decision to go after it. It does not define me. I do understand that that's the way the world perceives you. I enjoyed going after it ...There is a bit of superficiality to it but it's fun.
The award given right after mine went to Michael Brecker.
Siedah winning was fantastic. Icing on the cake was seeing Herbie win and see Quincy give him that award.