Alexa Tarantino: ‘Family & Community & Good Vibes’

Credit: Anna Yatskevich.

In a new in-depth Music & Artists video interview, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra saxophonist talks about the importance of old-school ear training, the joyful camaraderie of big bands, and why making mistakes is a great way to learn.

In many ways, the extraordinary career of saxophonist, woodwind doubler, composer and educator Alexa Tarantino has been a kind of full-circle moment. To understand why, you must go back more than two decades, to that revelatory evening when she discovered live jazz. In a new episode of Music & Artists, she recounts the story to M&A’s Mark Gauthier.

Tarantino was around 9 years old when she accompanied her parents to a performance by the jazz band from Hall High School, a nationally recognized jazz program in West Hartford, Conn. “I saw this young woman play a beautiful solo onstage,” she recalls, “which is pretty cool because a lot of people, one of their first comments is ‘Oh, you don’t see a lot of young women playing saxophone.’”

Tarantino would go on to play her own beautiful solos as a student at Hall, and today, her stature as a powerful, highly visible woman musician no doubt inspires other young women who are trying to find their way into music. What’s more, she has performed and recorded with some of the renowned woman artists and women-focused groups in jazz, like the vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant; the Blue Note-signed all-star band ARTEMIS; and Sherrie Maricle’s DIVA Jazz Orchestra.

But it’s also essential to note that Tarantino, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and Juilliard, ranks among the fastest-rising saxophonists in jazz, regardless of gender. Whether she’s playing in a large ensemble or helming small groups — she’s released four albums as a leader — her tone and technique impress. On alto sax, she’s developed a remarkably warm, inviting sound that can bring to mind a classic tenor player, and her virtuosic command of harmony suggests she can play with vigor and fluidity over pretty much anything.

Perhaps her crowning achievement has been her work with the Wynton Marsalis-led Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, a certified jazz institution that has historically been male-dominated. Recently, saxophonist Ted Nash announced on social media that Tarantino would be taking his spot in the orchestra, after his 26-year-long tenure. In a note to Music & Arts, he called Tarantino “one of the most talented and hard-working musicians I have met in a long time.

“She doubles beautifully on flute, clarinet and piccolo,” he continued, “and has a unique sound and improvisational style on the alto sax. And she gets along with everyone. I can’t think of a better person to pass the torch to than Alexa!”

In the Music & Artists conversation, Tarantino relates just a sampling of the unforgettable experiences she’s accrued in that ensemble. For instance: that time she and her mentor Victor Goines traded phrases on a Thelonious Monk tune, accompanied by special guest Chick Corea.

Gauthier also guides Tarantino through reflections on her musical education, which inspires fascinating insights on ear training, teaching philosophy and why mistakes might be the most valuable lessons of all. Read on for highlights from the conversation, and be sure to watch it in full below.

The School of Solfège

Tarantino’s saxophone playing often approaches the dynamic flexibility of the human voice, for good reason. As a student musician she immersed herself in old-school solfège ear training — you know: do re mi… — which proved hugely beneficial for her saxophone studies.

“That’s what really developed my ears and my sort of general pitch and ability to hear music in my head,” she says. “And so then picking up the instrument, transitioning that learning-by-ear method … it really opened up a whole world. Once I started playing saxophone, I just felt like I could play whatever I was singing around the house, or whatever I was hearing in my head.”

Wrong Notes Rule

Through her own considerable experience as an educator and mentor, Tarantino has found it’s crucial that students learn to self-correct, quickly and intuitively. “Let the student hear the wrong note,” she says. “Let the student figure out the right note … as opposed to saying, ‘Press this button and you get this note.’”

This concept is a great complement to her focus on ear training and vocalizing pitch fundamentals. “Let them hear that [the wrong note] doesn’t fit,” she explains, “because that’s what develops that discernment in their ear. That’s where they get that self-correction, which is really important. Because after a while, the teacher’s not going to be sitting with them in the band.”

If You Want to Know Something … Ask!

“Don’t be afraid to ask questions,” Tarantino advises young musicians. Looking back on her own development, the saxophonist wishes she’d been bolder about simply inquiring when she wanted to learn. “I was in a lot of situations where I felt like I was maybe the youngest or the newest in the room,” she recalls. “And sometimes I would feel hesitant to ask questions, and I would think, ‘Oh, maybe that’s a silly question, or maybe it’s embarrassing.’”

“It doesn’t matter,” she says, “because at the end of the day everybody has something that they don’t know.”

Along those lines, Tarantino emphasizes the importance of student musicians learning to help each other out in ensembles. “For students to develop the ability to self-correct is really important,” she begins, “and then also to lead and guide their neighbors.”

“Teachers can often take on the whole responsibility of the minutiae and the nitty-gritty,” she continues, “and I would say I’d rather have some students playing wrong notes or wrong rhythms — but noticing and being able to correct that … and help their neighbor.” That support among players “is super-important,” she says, because the good will that young musicians generate among their peers early on can follow them throughout their careers. Which brings us to…

The Jazz Family

Tarantino is definitely a team player who can use her unique gifts to serve a larger vision: Just check out her performing and recording credits, which include several of today’s top big bands, from DIVA and Jazz at Lincoln Center to Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra and the big band led by her spouse, pianist Steven Feifke.

As she recounts to Gauthier, the camaraderie she found in music changed her life early on. “Just playing with other people,” she says, “that was a huge thing. Even in fifth grade, you can squeak and squawk all you want, but if you’re playing with other people, it’s like, ‘Yeah! We got this!’”

That feeling only deepened as her jazz education continued. When she played in the jazz ensemble at Hall High School, she appreciated the long weekend rehearsals and ambitious competition trips. “Having that love for a communal mission … a common goal that you’re all working together towards,” she says, “that became the big thing for me.”

Throughout her years as a student, Tarantino consistently went the distance. Even before she earned the lead alto spot in her high-school band, she took on the vitally important “straw boss” role that could be found in so many historic big bands: the right-hand person, the motivator “making things happen behind the scenes.”

“I’d always have the four guys in the section come over on a Sunday afternoon,” she remembers, “and I’d make a bunch of brownies to entice them to come over and then rehearse the solis for three hours.”

When it came time for those high-profile competitions, Tarantino was less preoccupied with winning than with simply experiencing the joy of collaboration and progress. “To just be around a hundred other high-school students … I realized, like, ‘Wow, there are other people like me that are this serious about it. This person’s amazing … how do they do that? Or this section sounded amazing … how did they do that?’

“Somebody else knows something that you don’t, or maybe you can help somebody with something. I was sold right then and there. I just want to climb and keep going.”