Juno award-winning Toronto guitarist Jesse Cook has found truth in William Shakespeare’s declaration that “all the world’s a stage.”
Born in Paris — he spent summers at his father’s home in the Camargue region of southern France — the guitar virtuoso has an international pedigree that few musicians can lay claim to, selling out concert halls around the globe while feeding his fans’ appetite with 12 studio albums.
“If you asked me at age 22, I would have said that I would never, never, make music for the public,” said Cook in a management-provided bio. “I would have told you the public is much too fickle … they may love you one minute and forget you the next. Well, it turns out I did the thing I said I’d never do and somehow it has worked out.”
How well things have worked out for Cook will be fully evident Wednesday, July 19th at Del Crary Park when he returns to Peterborough Musicfest, having last played the festival in 2017. Admission to the 8 p.m. show is free.
Performing on the nylon-string guitar, Cook combines elements of the genres of Spanish flamenco, classical, jazz, pop, Brazilian samba, Persian music, and more into his original compositions.
“My music is fused with a multicultural concept that is very Canadian,” Cook says in an interview with Parvati Magazine in September 2019. “I feel like every year, the world of music is becoming more multicultural.”
VIDEO: “Shake” – Jesse Cook
That Cook found success in the arts arena is undeniably rooted in his upbringing by his creatively expressive parents, photographer and filmmaker John Cook and Canadian television director and producer Heather Cook. During those summers in southern France at his father’s house, he lived next door to Gypsy King guitarist Nico Reyes.
Enrolled on Toronto’s prestigious Eli Kassner Guitar Academy by his mother, Cook continued his musical education studying classical guitar at the Royal Conservatory of Music and Toronto’s York University (where he also studied Indian drumming) and jazz guitar at Boston’s Berklee College, with the aim of becoming a concert guitarist.
“There was this period where I was practising 10 hours a day and I was imagining myself on a stage,” he recalls. “I think as I got closer and closer to getting out of Berklee and getting a job, I began to chicken out. I thought, ‘Am I crazy? Nobody has a career as a concert guitarist. What kind of delusional person are you?’ I figured I’d be behind the scenes — a composer, a producer, a musical director.”
That’s what he did throughout his twenties until a turn of events, prompted by a cable television company airing his music as the background soundtrack for its listings loop, changed the trajectory of his music career.
“Their switchboard got flooded with calls,” marvels Cook. “People even got my number somehow and started phoning me at home, asking for a CD. I was saying ‘I don’t have a CD. I’m a background composer guy. I don’t make records.'”
That response got the wheels turning in Cook’s head and he acted, recording and self-producing Tempest in his home in 1995. He delivered the initial run of his debut album personally, getting it in the hands of his distributor. Buoyed by Cook’s performance at the Catalina Jazz Festival, Tempest entered the Billboard chart listing at a very respectable number 14.
VIDEO: Rumba Flamenco Music – The Best of “Love In The Time of Covid” – Jesse Cook
Since that debut, Cook has recorded 11 studio albums. That body of work earned him music industry accolades early in the form of Juno award nominations in 1998 and 2001 — the former for Instrumental Artist of the Year and the latter for Best Male Artist. But he didn’t walk away empty-handed from the 2001 Juno awards ceremony, taking home the Best Instrumental Album statue for his 2000 platinum-certified release Free Fall. In total, his work has brought him a remarkable 11 Juno Award nods.
Honoured in 2009 by Acoustic Guitar magazine as the silver winner of its Player’s Choice Award in the flamenco category (gold went to Paco de Lucia), Cook is also a three-time recipient of Canadian Smooth Jazz’s Guitarist of the Year Award.
During the pandemic, Cook, like musicians everywhere, saw his plans abruptly interrupted. Tempest 25, a re-issue of his debut album, was shelved as was a world tour in support of its release. So it was that Cook turned to Plan B, producing a series of YouTube videos of his performing his favourite songs. The collection, billed as “Love In The Time of COVID,” did much to enhance his already formidable global fan base.
“The first year (of the pandemic), with no touring, I needed a mountain to climb,” recalls Cook of his motivation.
As evidence of the international appeal of his sound, Cook’s music has scored the nightly news broadcast in Iraq. At the Olympics, skating and gymnastics routines have been delivered with his music as the soundtrack.
“In Turin (in 2006), a Japanese skater and a Russian skater competed using the same song (Mario Takes A Walk),” Cook notes. “One of them won. I think I should have got the bronze (medal).”
VIDEO: “Once” – Jesse Cook
Cook quips that his music “has had a way more interesting life” than he has had.
Still, his compositional style — often described as “world music,” a nebulous term originally intended to encompass any music outside the North American or British pop and folk traditions — is something he takes more seriously.
“If music can come from around the world and interconnect so beautifully to create this beautiful tapestry, maybe there’s something that music can teach us.”
Peterborough Musicfest is presenting 15 free-admission concerts during its 36th season, each staged on Wednesday and Saturday nights until August 19th, and supported by more than 100 sponsors, kawarthaNOW among them.
Overseen by general manager Tracey Randall and staff, a board of directors, and numerous volunteers, Peterborough Musicfest’s stated mission remains “to provide diverse, affordable live music to enrich cultural and economic prosperity in our community.”
For more information on this concert and the entire 2023 season, visit www.ptbomusicfest.ca or phone the Peterborough Musicfest office at 705-755-1111.
VIDEO: “Mario Takes a Walk” – Jesse Cook
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a headline sponsor of Peterborough Musicfest’s 2023 season.
