In her native Detroit, Cook started singing when she was a child. Growing up, the Midwesterner sang in a Protestant church--which explains the gospel influence--but her family did not discourage her from listening to secular music, and the secular music that she enjoyed ranged from R&B, rock and country to European classical. Cook, in fact, has been quoted as saying that her favorite artists range from John Coltrane to Chaka Khan to Johann Sebastian Bach. Nonetheless, jazz eventually became Cook's primary focus. After leaving the Motor City, Cook moved to Boston to attend college and earned a degree in speech communication. Then, in 1990, she moved to New York, where she became active on the Manhattan club scene but paid her bills with various "day gigs" that included working in a book store and teaching social studies in a junior high school. By the late ‘90s, however, she was singing on a full-time basis and had given up her "day gigs." It was in 1998 that Cook signed with MAXJAZZ, a small independent jazz label that is based in St. Louis and has been very singer-friendly. In 1999, Cook recorded her debut album, It's All About Love for MAXJAZZ; the CD enjoyed generally favorable reviews and received a Grammy nomination in the Best Jazz Vocal Performance category. In 2000, Cook recorded her second album, Dem Bones, for MAXJAZZ, and her third MAXJAZZ album, Simply Natural, was recorded in 2002. ~ Alex Henderson, Rovi