Celebrated Female Artists Find Common Grooves

Alexa Tarantino & Avery*Sunshine Talk Childhood Truths and Adult Journeys

Written by Lisa Battles

When two highly accomplished female musicians sit down for a talk about their journeys in the music industry, one might assume the conversation would center on sound.

Yet with Alexa Tarantino and Avery*Sunshine, the emerging themes are more about what they've seen and imagined-their childhood points of inspiration, adult aspirations and connections within themselves to one another.

Even with different backgrounds, career paths and musical genres, their stories and perspectives share many connections.

Seeing Themselves on Stage

Both musicians discovered their love for music at age 8 after seeing another young woman perform. That happened in the early 1980s for acclaimed R&B and gospel singer, pianist and composer Avery*Sunshine, who declared her intent to learn piano after attending a Christmas recital. She recently won the Grammy Award for Best Progressive R&B Album for her fourth album, "So Glad to Know You."
"I told my mom, 'I wanna do what that young lady's doing right there,'" Avery*Sunshine says. "I had no idea that one moment would lead to all of this and my life's work. The honesty that resides in children [...] sometimes we lose it. Experience and life will have you altering how you express yourself. And I think that's really important as a woman that we don't lose that - the innocence of our truth. And at that point, I felt like I was myopic. That's all I saw. I can't say I'm chasing that moment, but I do have to fight to find that space as a woman."
It was the early 2000s when an 8-year-old Tarantino had a similar experience attending a local school's jazz concert with her parents in her native West Hartford, Connecticut.
"I saw a young woman playing saxophone, and I was just like, that's what I want to do," Tarantino says. "What's so interesting about both our stories is that we each saw a young woman playing those instruments. So many people come up to me on the subway or wherever and say, 'It's so odd to see a woman with a saxophone.' And for me, it was never [a question]."
"Did you think that was going to be your life's work?" asks Avery*Sunshine.

"I knew that I was obsessed with it and that I didn't want to do anything else," says Tarantino.

Becoming the Role Models

While Tarantino began pursuing her newfound passion for jazz saxophone, Avery*Sunshine was launching her professional career. While in college, she'd formed a gospel and R&B duo with classmate Maia Nkenge Wilson. After school, she became the Minister of Music at the St. Paul AME Church in Atlanta, where she first met and began collaborating musically with her eventual husband, Dana Johnson. As business partners, the duo formed BigShine Music and independently released her self-titled first album in 2010.

Around the time of that release, Tarantino had begun her studies in jazz saxophone performance and music education at the Eastman School of Music, where she earned a bachelor's degree. She then earned a master's degree in jazz studies from The Juilliard School.

"I didn't know how things were going to pan out. When it came time, I thought, 'Okay, I have to go to music school for college. There's nothing else that I want to do,'" Tarantino says. "At that point I was thinking, 'Well, I could become a music teacher. I love to teach. But I also could also go to a conservatory where I could hibernate and practice, where I can be pushed to the highest level, and then move to New York to play and see what happens.'"

She's done both. In 2024, Tarantino became the first female to be appointed to a full-time position with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra - the only of its kind in the nation and among few in the world. Beyond her countless performance highlights, she has four albums to her credit as leader or co-leader and has performed on more than a dozen others.

"I don't think [15-year-old Alexa] would have ever imagined having a full-time position with the Jazz Lincoln Center Orchestra," Tarantino says. "I was speaking with my mentor Ted Nash yesterday, and he is an incredible supporter of diversity in general and the arts. He has brought me up to take his place after 26 years. He also says it's so important for people to be able to see themselves in someone on stage."

Following Confident Cues

As for her mentors, Avery*Sunshine recalls a few women who instructed her directly along the way: an early piano teacher, a "virtuoso" organist who was one of her professors at Spelman College and her Aunt Tootsie, who "played at all the churches and was brilliant." Avery*Sunshine adds to this list the late jazz organist Shirley Scott, who often played at the same churches as her aunt.
"They wanted me to play. I was like, 'Mm-hmm. That's not, I can't do that. There's too much going on with my feet and my hands. I'm not coordinated enough to do it,'" Avery*Sunshine says. "There was an organ here and a piano here. It was the strangest setup ever, right in front of the pulpit. And they'd plop me at the piano, and Ms. Shirley Scott would come to play the organ for service.
"I had never really seen a woman command an instrument in that way or to play. But when you talk about us seeing ourselves, again, I wasn't gonna play the organ, but just watching her confidence, watching her move and her statement of 'I can do whatever I want to do' ... That's really what it was."

Finding Connection Gracefully

Avery*Sunshine says revisiting the work and perspectives of Ella Fitzgerald added another facet to what she admires in female musical role models.
"I dove in and went down that YouTube wormhole, and I just listened to her talk. There's something about her meekness and her humility. There's something about that quiet storm that was very opposite of what I had to do," Avery*Sunshine says. "Watching her, there was a grace that she moved with that I sometimes struggle with."

That resonates with Tarantino, who emphasizes the importance of finding balance and points of connection, as she and Avery*Sunshine easily found during their conversation and musical collaboration.
"I know what you mean, because sometimes you don't want to come in as 'too much,' and yet you don't want to shrink yourself, either," Tarantino says. "I think we both are the type of people who want to be 100% ourselves. You want to surround yourself with people who make you feel like you can be your best and most authentic self. That's why this particular collaboration has been so special."
Tarantino added the most exciting part about collaborating with Avery*Sunshine had been discovering how despite their having very different backgrounds, they had many mutual friends, a willingness to be authentic and mutual respect to take risks together musically.
"I'm here learning from you today, thinking first of all, how amazing it is that we can come here and be ourselves and be celebrated, play authentically, and just try something and take risks," Tarantino says."I wasn't thinking about necessarily jazz or pop or R&B. I was thinking about blues. For us, it's all about the blues, and just you and me, and that's what it was."
Just two women celebrating the successes of the girls they once were - two imaginative young minds who saw their futures in the confident performances of other young women years ago.