.png)
Jesse Cook is wrapping up the Canadian leg of his world tour this week—and Winnipeg gets the final word.
The internationally acclaimed guitarist, known for blending flamenco with Latin, Roma and Middle Eastern influences, takes the stage at the Burton Cummings Theatre on Thursday, April 24. The concert marks his last Canadian date before the tour heads south for a string of U.S. performances through May.
Speaking over Zoom, Cook says the tour, which kicked off in 2024, has taken him across Europe and the U.S., with more shows coming up in the UAE this summer. But he’s holding onto his Canadian summer. “I’m taking the summer off because, you know, summer is so beautiful in Canada,” he says with a smile.
Cook has been chasing beautiful sounds since he was a kid. “It makes no sense, really,” he jokes about his early obsession with flamenco, while his friends were into Rush or the Beatles. Born in France, Cook spent six months in Barcelona as a toddler and got his first flamenco guitar teacher at just six years old after moving to Canada.
Later, as a teenager visiting his father in the South of France, Cook encountered a different kind of flamenco—a raw, rhythmic street style that hooked him for life. His dad happened to live in the Gypsy barrio of Arles, right next to future Gypsy Kings frontman Nicolas Reyes. “They weren’t famous yet,” Cook recalls. “He was just a local singer.”
Although Cook trained as a classical guitarist, even studying at York University and the Berklee College of Music, flamenco kept pulling him back. “By the time. I got out of Berkeley. I had been trained to be a professional musician. As I started going back more into flamenco, which is more of an oral tradition; there's no sight-reading music for flamenco. As I got more into it, I just kind of reconnected with kind of why I started playing guitar in the first place. “
Even as he adds global collaborators and sonic textures to his music, Cook keeps it simple when it comes to his own gear. Despite the modal and Middle Eastern influences in his music, he sticks to standard tuning. “Other musicians I work with might use different tunings or instruments, but I just move my fingers,” he laughs.
Cook’s music has travelled even further than he has. His song “Mario Takes a Walk” was plagiarized by the hit Bollywood film Dhoom, becoming the franchise’s main theme. He’s also unexpectedly shown up in Olympic figure skating routines, on Iraqi news broadcasts and even Spanish TV shows about bullfighting. “My music’s had a more interesting life than I have,” he jokes.
During the pandemic, Cook found solace in making music and videos from home. “Love in the Time of Covid” became a YouTube series of 31 performances—some classics, some new compositions—all recorded, filmed and edited by Cook himself. “It kept me sane,” he says. “I loved it. Both of my parents were filmmakers, so that part of it came naturally.”
His live show will draw on songs from across his 14-album catalogue. "It's more the arc of the show that I worry about. I don't want the show to be just all these big, huge loud songs and then a bunch of quiet songs. I kind of feel like you're trying to kind of build up this feeling and this emotion and by the end of the show, you kind of want it to be a bit of a crazy rumba party. So my job is to kind of slowly take the audience on this kind of trip around the world.... and feel like they brought their passports to the show. I try to make sure there’s something for everyone,” he says.
If anything’s certain, it’s that Thursday night’s audience will get more than just great guitar work—they’ll get stories, rhythms and energy from around the world, delivered by an artist who plays from the heart.
Jesse Cook performs at the Burton Cummings Theatre on Thursday, April 24 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are at the venue box office or through their website.