Re-Birth of Cool: Jazz Artist Braxton Cook Comes to Hong Kong

One of a new generation of musicians who’s taking jazz into unexplored territory while returning to its roots, saxophonist and singer Braxton Cook is bringing his band to Café Carlyle for a three- night residency this month. He talks to Prestige.

If, over the past half century, it’s sometimes seemed as if the journey of jazz has come to a premature halt, either waylaid by the sweet-sounding noodlings of commercialised crossover or relegated to the archives of tradition, the art form has recently been gaining renewed energy. That momentum is powered by a new generation that understands its history, yet, after growing up in the ’80s, ’90s and noughties, also opens its ears to other genres. Indeed, thanks to the likes of saxophonist Kamasi Washington, trumpeter Christian Scott, bassists Miles Mosley and Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner, and drummer Kendrick Scott – musicians schooled not only in the music of Bird, Monk, Coltrane and Miles, but also the uncompromising attitude of Tupac, Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg – jazz has been returned to both its roots and its original audience: young people. Dare we say jazz is cool again?

To that list of musicians who are searching for new modes of expression we should also add the name of Braxton Cook, a Juilliard-educated saxophonist, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Now in his early thirties, Cook, who was born in Boston, brought up in Washington DC and today calls Los Angeles home, grew up with what he calls “musically inclined” parents and first learned from his mother how to play classical piano. “I remember I wanted to learn Für Elise,” he says of his five-year-old self, an age when he was also exposed to everything from jazz and soul to gospel.

Cook, whose debut Asian tour with his band brings him to Carlyle & Co’s Café Carlyle for three nights near the end of September, first picked up a saxophone after his mother rented the instrument for his father’s birthday. “This is about 1995 or ’96,” he says. “He’s practising in the basement and I heard him, so I walked in there and listened – and I was just enamoured with it. Eventually, he just handed me the horn and let me play it – letting me just blow air into the mouthpiece. And I remember getting a sound out of it. And that definitely planted the seed. It was like Inception to some degree – the first time I was like, ‘Oh, I like this.’”

“There was a lot of music in the household,” he recalls, “and so many things that I feel were underscored by soul – or gospel records every Sunday. Around Christmas, I feel like I heard a lot of jazz – my dad would always put on some Wynton Marsalis Christmas record or something like that. I feel these are like tent poles in my memory, hearing certain styles of music at certain times of the year. We didn’t drive in the car with sports radio on. We had music.”

At around the age of 10 or 11 Cook joined the school band and, as luck would have it, was assigned the saxophone – and, a decade or so later, his horn playing had become so accomplished he was accepted on the jazz programme at New York’s famed Juilliard School of music and the performing arts, where he quickly found himself learning how to balance academia with the equally rigorous discipline of being a working musician. “The workload was a lot,” he says, “and being in New York City we were on a world stage – we’d have gigs at Blue Note and Dizzy’s and all these prestigious clubs, at just 19 or 20 years old. And a few of us started touring, like I did when I met Christian Scott in school. So juggling all of that was an early start into feeling and understanding what it’s like to be a working musician.

“Also, the students were very good, which just pushed me to another level. And then being in New York, the third thing, because that’s like, that’s where you want to be. That’s the epicentre of music still to this day. LA is dope and I love it, but I think when you’re starting out in jazz, New York is the place to be.”

Cook has spoken of his musical explorations as “genre-bending” and “millennial jazz” – and, believing all music is connected, he’s worked alongside the likes of Christian McBride, Jon Batiste, Rihanna, Solange Knowles and British guitarist/multi-instrumental Tom Misch. Asked which other musicians he’d love to perform or record with, he immediately cites jazz pianist and keyboard player, Herbie Hancock, another famous exponent of boundary-free music. “Even to share the same stage as him …” Cook says wistfully. “I saw Herbie last year, and he’s playing keytar and jumping around on stage – and this man is eighty-something years old. I’ve seen him like, four or five times and he’s so youthful. Some of those guys are just energised by the music and by just being creative.

“There’s a lot of people living in LA that I also want to work with. Thundercat’s one of them, Robert Glasper … let’s see … Anderson .Paak is a great artist who’s also genre-bending. And, yeah, I feel like artists that make music that way, we’re like-minded in our ideology and our thinking, and I think that would make something special.”

Unusually for a sax player, Cook not only writes his own songs but sings them, all of which can be heard on the 2022 song “90s”, a gloriously evocative homage to that formative decade, which deliciously weaves R&B with jazz, and features lyrics co-written and sung by his friend, the Jamaican-born and Grammy-nominated musician Masego.

Cook describes his playing and singing styles thus: “I think my saxophone tone is on the more mellow side. Kind of a sweeter, round and dark tone. It’s not a super-bright, brash sound. So in that sense, I think I’m more in that Chet [Baker] school, you know – the way I play the horn is similar to the way I sing, it’s chill, you know, it’s kind of laidback, it’s not a powerhouse kind of voice.

“It’s almost a mission statement to me that record and what it means to me,” he says of his composition “90s”. “And the choice I make when I’m singing a song to still infuse a lot of jazz elements and sax solos and all of that – whereas, of course, I could fully do an R&B album and just sing and keep the songs nice and short. I could do that, but I’m really interested in pushing, taking the listener – you know, who maybe is an R&B listener – and pushing their ear a little bit to hearing live instruments. I think, truthfully, I want to make music for that 11-year-old version of myself who loved jazz and R&B. I loved all of those sounds of music, you know what I mean? Things that made me who I am.”

I think, truthfully, I want to make music for that 11-year-old version of myself who loved jazz and R&B. I loved all of those sounds of music

Braxton Cook

For his three-night residency at Café Carlyle, which also marks his Hong Kong debut, he’s sharing the stage with drummer Curtis Nowosad, bassist Henoc Montes and Lucas Kadish on guitar. “I’ve been to Shanghai with other artists, as well as Blue Note in Tokyo a couple times, but this is my first Asian tour bringing my own band and playing my own music.

“It’s an honour and I’m kind of psyched out about it,” Cook says. “Whoa, we’re really doing this! It’s cool.” 

Braxton Cook and his band perform at Carlyle & Co’s Café Carlyle on September 26-28.