Home » Jazz Articles » Radio & Podcasts » Braxton Cook: Who Are You When No One Is Watching?

4

Braxton Cook: Who Are You When No One Is Watching?

By

View read count

Click the play button to listen

While almost everyone is sharing the most polished and curated versions of themselves, Braxton Cook is asking "Who Are You When No One Is Watching?"

Actually, as it turns out, it's a question he's asking of himself, and in a somewhat postmodern and ironic twist, he's doing it quite publicly on his new record, called (surprise!) Who Are You When No One Is Watching? which comes out February 24 on Nettwerk Records.

Braxton Cook is an artist of his time. That is, he's hard to define, hard to categorize, highly educated, determined to share his most authentic self and in a constant state of searching.

He's a Juilliard-trained jazz saxophonist who has worked with jazz artists Christian Scott (now Chief Adjuah), Christian McBride Big Band, Jon Batiste and Marquis Hill, as well as more mainstream artists like Solange Knowles and Tom Misch.

He's also a deeply sensitive solo artist, singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist who is committed to keeping the saxophone alive in soul music, speaking his own personal truth in his songs, and bridging the gap between jazz, soul, and alternative R&B. In other words, he's a millennial jazz artist. No wonder he opened his 2017 album Somewhere In Between with the song "Millennial Music."

We spoke recently about his trajectory, starting out on the local scene in Washington D.C. as a high school and college student (he spent two years at Georgetown University studying English with a concentration in African American Studies and playing gigs in town before transferring to Juilliard to pursue his jazz education), his evolution from soloist to singer, sideman to leader, and child to parent. We also talked about the value of nostalgia and deep emotional connection in his writing, intentionality in raising children, his determination to make "music with impact," where he cut his teeth and if that has anything to do with his lifelong fascination with dentistry.

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT



Braxton Cook Concerts


Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

Radio & Podcasts


Tune in daily to hear the internet's top jazz programs including Mondo Jazz, Jazz Bastard, Spotlight On, Liner Notes, World of Jazz, Allston Boylston, One Man's Jazz, The Outer View, Neon Jazz, A Broad Spectrum, Bitches Brew and more. View our program schedule and check this week's JazzWeek Radio Chart.

Popular

Read Take Five with Pianist Irving Flores
Read Jazz em Agosto 2025
Read Bob Schlesinger at Dazzle
Read SFJAZZ Spring Concerts
Read Sunday Best: A Netflix Documentary
Read Vivian Buczek at Ladies' Jazz Festival

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.