JESSE COOK

A career spanning twenty five years has brought this Canadian guitarist multiple accolades including a coveted Acoustic Guitar Magazine « Player’s Choice Silver Award », eleven Juno Award nominations (he won for 2001’s « Free Fall »), a Gemini Award and, most impressively, ten platinum and gold studio albums. Not a bad legacy for a guy who never planned to release an album. « If you had asked me at age 22, I would have said that I would never, never make music for the public ». A crazy sentence when you know that Jesse Cook sold over 1,5 million records worldwide.

The career of this Royal Conservatory Toronto’s York University and Berklee College (Boston) alumni started in the 90’ with several apparences in Canadian TV show and important gigs in the US.
If he must point to one it was the 1995 Catalina Jazz Festival where his playing earned a 10 minute standing ovation, sparked mob scenes "It was like being The Beatles ». He marvels and prompted one store to order enough copies of Tempest to land it at No.14 in Billboard. In Poland, his 2004 live album Montreal took the country by storm.. Elsewhere, his compositions have accompanied gymnastics and skating routine s at the Olympics."In Torino the Japanese skater and the Russian skater both competed using the same song (Mario Takes A Walk). One of them won. I think I should have got bronze," he says laughing.

It’s no wonder Cook also jokes that his music "has had a way more interesting life" than he’s had.

The guitarist Jesse Cook likes to merge different music styles from different part of the world: flamenco, rumba, but also rock, pop and classic. Cook has said of his music: "If you go to Spain and you play [my] music, they’ll say, what is this? They don’t recognize it as Flamenco because it’s not, it’s a hybrid. I love Flamenco, but I also love world music, jazz, pop, Brazilian Samba, and Persian music. ».  

Inspired of course by Nico Reyes, guitarist for The Gypsy Kings (which was his dad’s neighbor as Jesse was living in France), but also by Peter Gabriel, Paco de Lucia, Buena Vista Social Club and Al Di Meola, Jesse Cook likes music that provides a common ground for different traditions, a space where music from all historical eras and parts of the world can mingle. His two most recent albums helped him realize “you can go anywhere on Earth without moving.”

His last album « Libre » that he recorded after the pandemic resonates with a younger crowd because it’s infused with the kind of 808 trap beats heard in contemporary music, from reggaeton to K-pop.