This feature is derived from KNKX's Tree of Jazz, a weekly deep dive into artists, albums, and instruments from the roots of jazz to it's new budding leaves.
At the height of her jazz career, pianist Patti Bown swung with authority, creativity and skill. She shared stages and sessions with Quincy Jones, Dinah Washington, Clark Terry, Gene Ammons, James Moody, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Jimmy Rushing.
And yet, she recorded only one album as a leader. Her compositions were sometimes miscredited. And even as she built a reputation as a working musician, she was passed over for opportunities. Her story reveals that despite virtuosity in expression and skill undercurrents of sexism and racism limited her as a Black woman in a male-dominated jazz world.
Coast to coast
Growing up in Seattle, pianist and composer Patti Bown picked up music everywhere. She learned the blues from her mother, listened to gospel at a nearby church, and moved easily through early piano lessons without reading sheet music. She studied classical music and learned songs by ear from the radio and records. If she wasn't at her family's piano, she was fighting her sisters for her turn at the bench.
Eventually, she began sneaking into neighborhood jazz clubs, against her mother’s wishes, where other Seattle musicians like Ray Charles and Quincy Jones were coming up.
In her teens and early twenties, Bown had regular gigs, entered concerto competitions, and studied at Seattle University and Cornish College of the Arts. By the 50s, she had performed with the Seattle Symphony and joined the Seattle Black musicians’ union. Feeling limited, and increasingly absorbed with sound and energy of jazz, she set her sights on the beating heart of the music, New York City.
Early on, she often got uncredited work in session orchestras, and she may have even been on sessions with Sarah Vaughan and Billy Eckstine. But even as she built a reputation as a working musician, being a black woman in the male-dominating jazz culture and industry she experienced undercurrents of racism and misogyny.
“These guys would book me into nightclubs where old businessmen would try to grab me,” she told jazz historian Dylan Foley. “I’d slug them and be out of a job.”
That resistance showed up on bandstands, too. Bown said she received applause when she auditioned for Benny Goodman’s orchestra but was passed over.
“You sure can play, but he won’t hire you,” Bown said, recalling what the music director told her, “He’s got some kind of complex about chicks. He thinks they draw too much attention.”
Bown described that mindset as “some wicky wacky prejudice.” But she continued, letting her sound set the tone.
“They seemed to feel that women were always trying to cop a plea,” Bown said in the book Stormy Weather. “Women were known for being pretty, and playing lightly, and always having reasons why they couldn’t complete something because they had problems with their bodies. So I just went ahead and played.”
From leader record to major gigs
And play she did. Bown was lively and expressive at the piano.
Her only album as a leader, Patti Bown Plays Big Piano, was recorded in 1959. It includes some of her best-known compositions, including the bright, blues-tinged “G’Won Train” and “Nothing But the Truth.” Those pieces would later be recorded by larger ensembles led by Quincy Jones, Jimmy Smith and Al Grey.
On Big Piano, Bown swings hard with a trio, Joe Benjamin on bass and Ed Shaughnessy on drums. In addition to her originals, they also take on standards, including a fast, driving version of “Give Me the Simple Life.”
It was fellow Seattle native Jones who reconnected with Bown and became a key collaborator. She joined his orchestra, recording several albums and touring Europe in 1959 and '60. In that band, Bown and trombonist Melba Liston were the only women. She was also joined by fellow Seattle musicians, including bassist Buddy Catlett and saxophonist Floyd Standifer.
After that, Bown worked as music director for Dinah Washington during one of the singer’s most successful periods. In Stormy Weather, Bown recalled Washington’s commanding presence, including on her private jet.
“Once when we landed in Syracuse…She grabbed the microphone and was talking away, informing the tower that Dinah Washington was about to land. She had the energy of four people,” she said.
Lifelong calling
Bown recorded frequently through the ‘60s. She had sessions with a range of top players, including Chicago tenor man Gene Ammons and big band leader Oliver Nelson. Notably, she recorded a dazzling version of John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” with bandleader and trumpeter Art Farmer and saxophonist James Moody as part of the short-lived New York Sextet.
Bown also stepped outside the jazz world. She performed on Broadway and wrote for stage productions, including work with Maya Angelou.
She continued performing for many years. In 1979, The New York Times reviewed one of her performances, calling her “a forceful, ebullient and colorful performer,” and she was a guest on NPR’s Piano Jazz that same year.
She never recorded another album of her own, but she continued to write. Her compositions include “Dimity,” a tribute to her mother, and “Back Home in Seattle.” These and other parts of her history are archived in the New York Public Library.
Bown died in 2008, but her playing lives on through Big Piano and a roster of rhythm section features with some of the best in jazz. Even so, you can’t help but wonder, could there have been more? She certainly had the recipe to be a more lauded jazz pianist.
Select tracks from Patti Bown Plays Big Piano and other performances of hers will be featured on the March 22, 2026 edition of The Tree of Jazz. Listen to the past two weeks of Tree of Jazz On-Demand, and hear deep dives like this each week on air and online every Sunday from 3-6 p.m. PT.
