Jesse Cook's world
Internationally renowned guitarist to perform at Northern Arts and Cultural Centre
Robin Grant
Northern News Services
Friday, March 24, 2017
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
International nuevo-flamenco guitar sensation Jesse Cook is coming to Yellowknife, and he's bringing the world with him.
Guitarist Jesse Cook is performing at the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre tomorrow evening. Cook will be performing from his ninth studio album. - photo courtesy of Jesse Cook |
Cook, who was born in Paris and raised in Toronto, was playing a gig in Latvia this week and not able to chat with Yellowknifer.
However, Northern Arts and Cultural Centre artistic director Marie Coderre described him as one of the most talented musicians to grace the Northern stage.
"I think everybody can relate to his music and they can also appreciate the scale of his talent, too," she said.
With Cook, Coderre said she wanted to feature an artist who could serve as a symbol of Canada's multiculturalism for Canada 150.
"There are so many different cultures (in Canada) and I wanted to represent a segment of what Canada is all about," she explained. "His music is influenced by music from all around the world ... We're extremely lucky to have him represent a big portion of what Canada is."
As for Cook, he has described his music as a journey and has found inspiration travelling all over from Cairo to Columbia in the past two decades. In a news release, he describes how he changed things up for his ninth studio album One World, which came out in 2015.
Cook will be performing that album this weekend.
Instead of travelling to exotic places, Cook stated he stayed at home in his studio and relied on his own devices, where he explored a variety of music - classical, rumba, world beat, pop, blues or jazz - which is characteristic of Nuevo flamenco. He described the album as uniting the musical forms.
"I wanted to make what I was doing feel like Constantinople, the ancient city that existed between the East and the West," he wrote. "It was like the meeting point of all these great cultures - Africa, Europe, Asia, India. I want my music to be that place: The Constantinople of sound. A place where ancient sounds meet with modern ones and pass through that port."
Additionally for Cook, the album begins another stage in his career as a multitasking artist, composer and producer.
The Juno-award winning artist will be hitting the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre stage tomorrow night.
