Jesse Arnaud Cook is a Canadian guitarist. He is a Juno Award winner, '' Acoustic Guitar'' Player's Choice Award silver winner in the Flamenco Category, and a three-time winner of the Canadian

Smooth Jazz Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s. History Smooth jazz is a commercially oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 19 ...

award for Guitarist of the Year. He has recorded on the

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

E1 Music MNRK Music Group (pronounced "monarch", formerly known as Koch Records and eOne Music) is a New York City-based independent record label and music management company. It was formed in 2009 from the music assets of Koch Entertainment, which had ...

and

Narada Narada ( sa, नारद, ), or Narada Muni, is a sage divinity, famous in Hindu traditions as a travelling musician and storyteller, who carries news and enlightening wisdom. He is one of mind-created children of Brahma, the creator god. He ...

labels and has sold over 1.5 million records worldwide.

Life and career

Cook was born November 28, 1964 in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

to Canadian photographer and filmmaker John Cook and Canadian television director and producer Heather Cook. Cook studied in classical and jazz guitar at Canada's

Royal Conservatory of Music The Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM), branded as The Royal Conservatory, is a non-profit music education institution and performance venue headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1886 by Edward Fisher as The Toronto Con ...

York University York University (french: Université York), also known as YorkU or simply YU, is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's fourth-largest university, and it has approximately 55,700 students, 7,0 ...

, and Berklee College of Music in the United States. He has often quipped that he later attempted to unlearn it all while immersing himself in the oral traditions of gypsy music. After the independent 1995 release in Canada of his debut album, ''Tempest'', he played at the 1995 Catalina Jazz Festival; shortly afterwards, ''Tempest'' entered the American Billboard charts at No. 14. Cook has recorded ten studio albums, five live DVDs and has traveled the world exploring musical traditions that he has blended into his style of

rumba flamenca Rumba flamenca, also known as flamenco rumba or simply rumba (), is a '' palo'' (style) of flamenco music developed in Andalusia, Spain. It is known as one of the '' cantes de ida y vuelta'' (roundtrip songs), music which diverged in the new world ...

. In 1998, Cook was nominated for a Juno Award as Instrumental Artist of the Year. In 2001, he received a Juno Nomination for Best Male Artist. In 2001, Cook won a Juno Award in the Best Instrumental Album category for ''Free Fall''. In 2009, he was Acoustic Guitar's Player's Choice Award silver winner in the Flamenco category (gold went to

Paco de Lucia Paco is a Spanish nickname for Francisco. According to folk etymology, the nickname has its origins in Saint Francis of Assisi, who was the father of the Franciscan order; his name was written in Latin by the order as ''Pater Communitatis'' (fat ...

). He is a three-time winner of the Canadian Smooth Jazz award for Guitarist of the Year and numerous other awards. In 2011, Cook began filming, directing, and editing his own music videos with the release of ''Virtue''. He has since directed, filmed, and edited eight music videos, 16 episodes of ''Friday Night Music'', and produced, edited, and mixed the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

Concert Special ''Jesse Cook, Beyond Borders''. Cook has said of his music: "If you go to Spain and you play ymusic, 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."

Discography

Studio albums

*''

Tempest Tempest is a synonym for a storm. '' The Tempest'' is a play by William Shakespeare. Tempest or The Tempest may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Films * ''The Tempest'' (1908 film), a British silent film * ''The Tempest'' (1911 film), a ...

'' (1995) *''

Gravity In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stro ...

'' (1996) *''

Vertigo Vertigo is a condition where a person has the sensation of movement or of surrounding objects moving when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. This may be associated with nausea, vomiting, sweating, or difficulties w ...

'' (1998) *''

Free Fall In Newtonian physics, free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it. In the context of general relativity, where gravitation is reduced to a space-time curvature, a body in free fall has no force acting on ...

'' (2000) *''

Nomad A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the po ...

'' (2003) *'' Frontiers'' (2007) *'' The Rumba Foundation'' (2009) *''The Blue Guitar Sessions'' (2012) *''One World'' (2015) *''Beyond Borders'' (2017) *''Libre'' (2021)

Live albums

*''Montréal'' (2004)

Compilation album

*''The Ultimate Jesse Cook'' (2005) *''Greatest Hits'' (2010)

Video albums

Other appearances

* '' Enchantment'' (2001) Charlotte Church * ''Camino Latino'' (2002)

Liona Boyd Liona Maria Carolynne Boyd, (born 11 July 1949) is a classical guitarist often referred to as the First Lady of the Guitar. Music career Early years Boyd was born in London and grew up in Toronto. Her father grew up in Bilbao, Spain, and her ...

* ''

Seed A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...

'' (2003) Afro Celt Sound System

Other compilation appearances

* ''Guitar Music For Small Rooms'' (1997) ( WEA) * ''Gypsy Passion: New Flamenco'' (1997) (

) * ''

Narada Smooth Jazz ''Narada Smooth Jazz'' is a 1997 compilation release by Narada. It peaked at #25 on Billboard's Top Contemporary Jazz Albums in the same year. Track listing *1.01 "Redwood/Nocturne" – Spencer Brewer – 4:20 *1.02 "Gravity" &ndash ...

'' (1997) (

) * ''The Next Generation: Explore Our World'' (1997) (

) * ''Narada Film and Television Music Sampler'' (1998) (

) * ''Narada Guitar: 15 Years of Collected Works'' (1998) (

) * ''Gypsy Soul: New Flamenco'' (1998) (

) * ''Obsession: New Flamenco Romance'' (1999) (

) * ''Gypsy Fire'' (2000) (

) * ''Guitar Greats: The Best of New Flamenco – Volume I'' (2000) ( Baja/TSR Records) * ''Narada Guitar 2: The Best of Two Decades'' (2000) (

) * ''Buddha Bar III'' (2001) * ''Tabu: Mondo Flamenco'' (2001) (

) * ''Camino Latino / Latin Journey – Liona Maria Boyd'' (2002) (Moston) * ''Guitar Greats: The Best of New Flamenco – Volume II'' (2002) ( Baja/TSR Records) * ''Best of Narada New Flamenco Guitar'' (2003) (

) * ''Guitar Music For Small Rooms 3'' (2004) ( WEA) * ''Gypsy Spice: Best of New Flamenco'' (2009) ( Baja/TSR Records) * ''The World of the Spanish Guitar Vol. 1'' (2011) (

Higher Octave Music Higher Octave Music is a sub-label imprint of Narada Productions. Since 2013, it is part of Universal Music Group's Capitol Music Group, which is located in Los Angeles. History Higher Octave was acquired by Virgin Records on behalf of EMI in 19 ...

) * ''Guitar Greats: The Best of New Flamenco – Volume III'' (2013) ( Baja/TSR Records)

References

External links

Jesse Cook , Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cook, Jesse Flamenco guitarists Juno Award for Instrumental Album of the Year winners Berklee College of Music alumni Canadian jazz guitarists Canadian male guitarists Living people Narada Productions artists Waldorf school alumni Musicians from Toronto Canadian world music musicians Canadian male jazz musicians 1964 births