Whenever Carla Cook needs to escape the inharmonious urban vibes
of the city, she heads for her favorite spot. Luckily, she doesn’t
have to journey far.
With the same inspired effort used to fashion her unique-to-jazz
style, the talented vocalist has transformed her Fort Greene
backyard into a creative oasis where she can find her muse.
"It’s time to do another record. That’s why I get out here
and putter around until the song fairies jump on me and give
me a melody," Cook said recently during a breakfast interview
in her backyard retreat of carefully selected flat stones and
flowers. "I love Brooklyn and this is my very favorite spot
in Brooklyn, right here."
Cook moved to Fort Greene after attending Northeastern University
in Boston in 1990.
With three highly praised CDs, including a Grammy nomination
for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for her 1999 debut, "It’s
All About Love" (MAXJAZZ), Cook is one of jazz’s rising
talents and another prominent name on Brooklyn’s incredible roster
of jazz stars.
Listening to one of Cook’s recordings, or better yet, witnessing
a live performance, is like opening a box of individually wrapped,
assorted fine chocolates. Everything from Ellington and Strayhorn
standards, Jobim bossa nova rhythms, gospel, rock, pop, country
– and of course the Motown sound of her native Detroit – have
been sources for the inventive vocalist’s unique approach to
jazz. She featured a violinist on her first CD and a trio of
trombonists on her second, "Dem Bones" (MAXJAZZ).
"The boundaries that people – sometimes artists themselves
or record labels – have set that say, ’This is the music you
can sing, this is what jazz is,’ I have no interest in that,"
says Cook, who covered rocker Neil Young’s "Heart of Gold"
and Marvin Gaye’s ’60s classic Motown anthem "Inner City
Blues" on her debut CD. The singer-songwriter-arranger also
has recorded the popular music of Eric Clapton and on her most
recent CD, "Simply Natural" [MAXJAZZ] Simon and Garfunkel’s
"Scarborough Fair."
"For me, if I like the music, can hear an arrangement and
can improvise and use all the elements of what I’ve learned over
the years to be jazz, I do it," she says. "So, yeah,
Marvin Gaye gets to be on my CD, and yes it’s a jazz record.
And I don’t feel like I have to defend that."
Cook bristles at the "eclectic" label often used to
describe her wide-ranging music choices. "I mean it’s all
just music. It’s a melody after all," she says.
The majority of the songs she has recorded on her CDs, Cook notes,
have been straight-ahead jazz standards "with whatever my
twist is on it." There is also, always, a hint of Brazilian
rhythms and several of Cook’s own contemporary compositions.
"And on all of them," she adds, "there’s at least
one place where I’m reaching back into my childhood." Like
Bobbie Gentry’s ’60s hit, "Ode To Billie Joe."
"I must have been 4 or 5 years old," she recalls of
the song that she recorded on "Dem Bones."
Being different for the sake of being different doesn’t interest
Cook, who was singing in the church choir by the age of 5.
"I grew up in the middle of Detroit with all this other
music around me and all mixed up," says Cook. "Musically,
I’d be lying if I didn’t include some of it. That’s what I’ve
been hearing all of my life."
In a culture where the most popular music celebrates the "bling
bling" lifestyles of gangsta celebrity, and jazz is quarantined
at the end of the radio dial, life as a committed jazz artist
can be a struggle – even if you’ve gotten a Grammy call. It’s
the "nature of the beast," says Cook.
"You go through these really ugly, dry periods," says
the singer who admits to having experienced "a bad patch"
that she had to get through. "Then there is the period where
you have to be everywhere, 24-7, and you don’t know how you’re
going to get it all done. And then try to balance that out. That’s
the constant struggle It’s just a matter of hanging in there
and patience.
"Good things have always been happening," says Cook.
"I’ve felt almost charmed. Six months after my first record
was out, somebody calls me about a Grammy nomination."
The past year has brought a lot of good things Cook’s way.
Last December, Aretha Franklin invited Cook to perform at her
annual Christmas party in Detroit, for several hundred friends
and dignitaries. When the Queen of Soul walked to the stage to
request a song, Cook admits, she was "a little terrified."
In the past few months, Cook, who tours constantly for the love
of it (and to pay the bills), has performed at the Monterey Jazz
Festival in California, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing
Arts in Washington, D.C., and Lincoln Center in Manhattan. She’s
also performed this year at most of the city’s top jazz clubs.
"I feel like I’ve been very, very blessed. I have no complaints,"
says Cook. "Radio has been good to me. I’ve had positive
reviews, and for a jazz musician, decent sales Whatever it is
that I’m supposed to accomplish in this life, a higher power
has it all written out. It’s not necessarily in the hands of
anybody in this [music] industry."
Cook has been "puttering" in her backyard retreat lately,
working on ideas for her much-anticipated fourth CD.
"I want to go a different direction this time," she
says. "I just don’t know what direction." As for her
personal direction, the singer feels that she’s not that far
away from her ideal life.
"In my entire life, I’ve never told anybody that I wanted
to be a star," she says. "I want to sing.
"In a perfect world, in a couple years, I’d be married.
I’d be very stable. I’d still be creating music. I would be on
the road, because I want to be and not because I have to be.
I’d be healthy and happy, trying to balance it all out.
"I’d like to still be recording," Cook adds, "but
I’d like to expose myself to some other kinds of things. Like
when I was able to do the Sony Playstation game [she provided
the voice of an animated character in "Parappa the Rapper
Part II"] just because it was different, it was fun."
Which also happen to be two reasons to enjoy Carla Cook’s music.
Carla Cook’s CDs include "It’s
All About Love," "Dem Bones" and "Simply
Natural" on the MAXJAZZ label.
