Patrizia Scascitelli was born on October 15, 1949, in Rome. She began piano lessons at age eight with an organist teacher at her convent school, practicing on a cardboard keyboard before her family could afford a real instrument. She went on to study at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome under Tito Aprea, along with Armando Renzi, Lia De Barberis and Pietro Scarpini, earning her piano diploma in 1972.

That same year, Giorgio Gaslini arrived at Santa Cecilia to teach the conservatory's first jazz course, the first academic jazz program in Italy, which he held through 1973. Scascitelli enrolled and became one of its formative students, a relationship she has since described as both professional and a lasting friendship. She played piano on two of Gaslini's own 1973 recordings, Message (Giorgio Gaslini Double, BASF) and Favola Pop Reportage Da "L'Isola Di Utopia" (Produttori Associati), both confirmed at the Discogs credit level. In 1973 she also played the opening note of the first Umbria Jazz festival.

Her debut album, Ballata, was recorded in March 1974 at RCA's studios in Rome with bassist Roberto Della Grotta and drummer Mario Marinelli, and released in 1975 on RCA's Vista label. Multiple Italian sources credit it as the first Italian jazz album led by a woman. On January 28, 1975, she led a landmark concert at Milan's Universita Statale with American tenor saxophonist Larry Dinwiddie, drummer Marvin "Boogaloo" Smith and conga player Karl Potter; the performance was recorded live at the Festival di Nuove Tendenze del Jazz Italiano and released in 1976 as her self-titled quartet album on Edizioni di Cultura Popolare. She also played piano on singer-songwriter Gianni Togni's In Una Simile Circostanza (RCA, 1975).

In 1981 she moved to New York, where she built the next four decades of her career. She has performed and recorded with musicians including Don Cherry, Maxine Sullivan, Clifford Jordan, Buster Williams and David "Fathead" Newman, according to her own published biography, and taught piano for roughly a decade at Hunter College Elementary School's program for musically gifted children. Her 1998 album Homecoming - Solo Piano/Trio (Splasc(h) Records), recorded in Legnano, Italy, features bassist Paolino Dalla Porta and drummer Giampiero Prina, Discogs-confirmed. Live In Rome followed in 2001 on Splasc(h), billed as solo piano and duo performances; the label's own promotional copy describes it as a reunion with Gaslini, though Discogs' listing for the release does not itemize personnel.

Close Up (2004, Apria Records) brought together alto and soprano saxophonist Mark Gross, trumpeter Jim Seeley, bassist Bob Bowen III, drummer Carlos Cervantes and tenor saxophonist Ada Rovatti, all Discogs-confirmed, with liner notes contributed by trumpeter Randy Brecker and critic Ira Gitler. Open Window followed in 2009 on Piloo Records & Productions, the label Rovatti had founded that same year; the artist's own Bandcamp credits list Rovatti again on tenor saxophone alongside flutist Jamie Baum, trumpeter Jim Seeley, trombonist Clarence Banks, guitarist Michelle Marie, bassist Bob Bowen and drummer Silvia Cuenca, though Discogs' own listing for the release does not itemize personnel beyond Scascitelli herself. A later solo and small-group album, In Search of Beauty (2018), moved toward Brazilian-tinged material such as "Samauma," "El Gato" and "Corta Jaca"; it is available on Spotify but has not been catalogued on Discogs.

In 2023, after four decades based in New York, Scascitelli returned to live in Rome and formed a new quintet, Reunion Five, with saxophonist Andrea Pace and a rotating rhythm section drawn from Italian players including bassist Stefano Cantarano and drummer Massimiliano De Lucia, performing at venues including Rome's Casa del Jazz. In 2025 she released '77 Now New, built around a 1977 studio session she rediscovered on cassette tape decades later during a move: six compositions recorded with saxophonist Giancarlo Maurino, bassist Ricky Romei, percussionist Carlinhos "Tumbadora" Silva and her longtime collaborator Marvin "Boogaloo" Smith on drums, with creative input from Brazilian composer Lupicinio Rodrigues, an associate of Vinicius de Moraes. Like In Search of Beauty, the album has not been catalogued on Discogs.

Scascitelli's playing carries her classical training at Santa Cecilia into a mainstream, post-bop jazz vocabulary shaped directly by Giorgio Gaslini's conservatory jazz course, the first of its kind in Italy. Her own leader albums move between standards-based trio and quartet dates (Ballata, Homecoming, Live In Rome), horn-driven group sessions built around her original compositions (Close Up, Open Window), and, on her more recent work, a turn toward Brazilian rhythm and repertoire (In Search of Beauty). The rediscovered 1977 session released in 2025 as '77 Now New documents an earlier, more jazz-prog-inflected side of her writing from the same period as her earliest Gaslini-adjacent recordings.