Natalie Cole performs in 'Great Performances: We Love Ella! A Tribute to the First Lady of Song', airing Wednesday night at 7:00 on PBS.

"They've got good folks," singer Patti Austin says, "people who can sing this music, and that's a lot of fun. Good thing, because there's only five of us left in the world."

Austin may be exaggerating as she sits backstage on April 29 at the Galen Center at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, getting her makeup done to go on stage for a tribute concert to Ella Fitzgerald. There are more than five people on hand to honor the late jazz singer, who would have been 90 years old on April 25.

Airing on PBS on Wednesday, June 6, as Great Performances: We Love Ella! A Tribute to the First Lady of Song, the concert features songs and comments from Natalie Cole, Wynonna, Dave Koz, Quincy Jones, Take 6, Nancy Wilson, Lizz Wright, Ledisi, Stevie Wonder, Monica Mancini and Ruben Studdard, winner of the second season of American Idol.

They're performing songs associated with Fitzgerald, including Ain't Misbehavin' (Wynonna), A Tisket, a Tasket (Cole), Do Nothing (Studdard), How High the Moon (Austin/Take 6), Lullaby of Birdland (Wright), Too Close for Comfort (Wonder), But Not for Me (Mancini) and Someone to Watch Over Me (Wilson).

When Cole is asked what young singers could learn from Fitzgerald - whom Cole knew as a child as Auntie Ella when Fitzgeraldappeared with her father, Nat King Cole, on his TV show - she pauses on her way to take a photograph with Wonder and says, "They need to learn how to stay on pitch. That would probably be number one. Pitch, phrasing, tell the story, sing the song. Give the message, and get your ego out of the way.

Musical education

"It's all about the music. It gets about you later. Because if they love the music, they'll love you. They think it's the other way around. You've got to sell the song."

While there is an "Idol" alumnus on the show, Austin believes many young singers don't have the musical education to sing the songs that Fitzgerald made famous.

"Nobody's teaching them how to do it," she says. "It's a whole other form. It's not something you can just jump up and do, especially if you're a pop singer. It's another mentality to consider.

"It's about telling the story and being one with the story and maybe having a little experience so you can really tell a story. I don't want to hear 25-year-olds singing Lush Life. But there's a young lady on this show tonight, who I think is going to rip the roof off the place - Lizz Wright.

"She's got marvelous tone. She doesn't over-sing. She understands the minimalist approach one has to have while doing music from the Great American Songbook."

"It's very important to know where you came from," Quincy Jones says, "to know how to get to where you're going. We've lost this sense of legacy, and it has to be brought back, because it will give everybody a sense of self, that they belong on this planet.

"We've got to get involved with schools, make an awareness there's something to be proud of."

- Kate O'Hare, Zap2it