Before making his way to the Julliard, Boston-born, Maryland-raised jazz saxophonist and singer-songwriter Braxton Cook had already built quite the resume. When he wasn’t selected for the 2009 Grammy jazz ensemble from a pick of 30 students nationwide, Cook joined the likes of Nicki Minaj, Viola Davis, Kerry Washington and Billy Porter as a YoungArts Finalist.

After growing into his own as a musician and studying at Juilliard, he found himself working with popular jazz acts from Butcher Brown to close friend Christian Scott. Cook’s solo output has also solidified him as a top-tier artist within the genre including Somewhere in Between in 2017, 2018’s No Doubt and Fire Sign dropping around 2020.

As the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown went into full swing following the release of Fire Sign, Cook got married, joined club fatherhood and even moved from New York to Los Angeles. Those life changes and therapy set the stage for his latest project Who Are You When No One Is Watching. Released in late February, the album was featured on BET.com’s most anticipated albums of the year, and for good reason.

His most introspective project to date, the album’s lead-up single has him reminiscing on his favorite decade, the “90s.” Doesn’t hurt that the track features trap house jazz progenitor and fellow sax player Masego.

Speaking with BET.com, Cook explains his the making of Who Are You When No One Is Watching, the current state of jazz in pop culture and getting a production credit with Taylor Swift.

Bet.com: That "90s" joint you have with Masego that you dropped last year was pretty dope. How did you want that single to set the tone for Who Are You When No One Is Watching which was released last week?

Braxton Cook: With that song, in particular, I wanted to capture a few things. So one is the 90s kid. Everybody's like, what do you even remember from the 90s? But it's not so much something like watching Love Jones and being in a relationship at that time. It's just what I think a lot of those movies and films of the nineties Black creatives showcased which was just Black love man, Black relationships, the power of also our creativity and our just overall dominance in every part of the culture. During the 90s, to me, it was like hip hop, R&B, film and music. It was a resurgence of so many ways of just all of our abilities, creative advancements and stuff in every genre, even jazz. It was like, I remember seeing Branford Marsalis, even on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. It made sense to collaborate with Masego who is another great artist and creator from my area, the DMV. I’m from Maryland and we've known each other for a minute and it just came together naturally. We’ve been hanging out since I moved to LA.

Bet.com: The album has a beautiful watercolor-like album cover featuring your family which is a first considering your previous covers with just yourself. Can you recall the creative direction of the album's visual presentation and your ambitions for the project?

Braxton Cook:  All of my other covers may have just kind of been me in the middle with some stoic photo and that’s cool. I was thinking this time about how I wanted to just visually portray this transition in the past couple of years I’ve been through.

Obviously, I thought about what I wanted to say musically and just how I felt as to how I'd been impacted by this pandemic event and everything else that was changing in my life all at once. I think it just made sense that I featured my family on the front of this record. Originally, I met with this artist. He goes by LP Ækili Ross, but we reached out to him to actually rent some art for the "90s" music video. So this is all related back to the 90s actually. So in that video, when I'm sitting on the couch, there's some beautiful showcase of art behind me and that's the artist I stayed in touch with and I was like, man, we got to work on something for the album cover. This was back in September or October and we just stayed in touch.

Bet.com: Clearly this album is another masterful evolution in your musical journey despite the life changes and obstacles of the pandemic. However, listening to tracks like "90s" or "Let Go" and “Gold (Alternate Mix)” where did you want to evolve on the songwriting tip?

Braxton Cook: I think a lot of songwriting was just inspired by just therapy sessions. I got a therapist right around maybe May or June of like 2020 and then she encouraged me to just journal; write down my thoughts and do that every day if I could. From that spawned a lot of lyrics to a lot of song ideas and concepts with “Let Go” being one of them. In that moment of just not really having control over what is happening, right? Because the country kind of shut down and at that time, it felt like this would never end. So it was just one of those things that helped to relieve a lot of stress and anxiety.

I was like, look, this out of my control man. You just got to just let go and just ride the wave and enjoy discovering other parts of yourself and your personality outside of just being a touring artist or a musician. It's like there are other things. So I think that's why I ended up leaning so heavily into just my personal life, family and some of these other aspects to create that made me just a more whole person. A lot of these tunes are very introspective in that regard. “Gold (Alternate Mix)” and absolutely “Let Go.”

Bet.com:  Between the Samara Joy winning Best New Artist and Robert Glasper’s best R&B album win at the Grammys. What’s the state of the genre in regards to mainstream recognition at the moment?

Braxton Cook: It's super inspiring to see someone like Samara Joy win that award and any attention that this music gets from that mainstream or any push it gets from that mainstream kind of machine is a win for everybody. Ultimately, I deeply believe in this music. I deeply think it's connected to who we are as Black people. I think it's something deeply inspired by just everything that we've gone through in this country. You know what I mean? And ultimately, all the music that is deemed popular today, I think, are branches from that tree of jazz, soul and R&B. It's a win for me when I see Robert Glasper do his thing and build his audiences. When I see Thundercat do it, when I see Terrace Martin do it, when I see Christian Scott do it, when I see Samara win now, all of it I think is connected to the same mission and it's beautiful. I hope to be part of that of course. But I think it's amazing.

Bet.com: You recently received a production credit on Taylor Swift’s Midnights album on the “Lavender Haze” track alongside touring with mainstream pop artists like Rihanna. Where do those connections between mainstream pop music and jazz correlate in your opinion?

Braxton Cook: I think a lot of those in those pop circles, a lot of these musicians, after a while, they want to just find something. They want to be connected to truth and to a sound that carries weight. Talking about this Taylor Swift record, one of my best friends and Godfather to my kid Jahaan Sweet was my roommate back at Julliard. He’s an incredible producer and he’s very much in that world. As friends, we have a nice group text where we send ideas back and forth alongside music. I happened to be one of them that he flipped in terms of a sample of mine that he manipulated. That became “Lavender Haze” and that's been a beautiful thought working with Jahaan. He went from Julliard’s jazz piano program to working with the artists he works with and that’s incredible.