From composer to global guitar star: Jesse Cook reflects on his unlikely journey

Khaleej Times

22-06-2025

After electrifying audiences in Dubai and Abu Dhabi with back-to-back weekend concerts, genre-defying guitarist Jesse Cook sat down with Khaleej Times to reflect not just on the tour, but on the unexpected path that led him there. From childhood flamenco records in Canada to a breakout album he never expected to sell, Cook's story is as layered as the music he creates.
"My earliest memories would be maybe when I was four or five in Canada," he recalled. "We had a stereo in our house and my mum had brought all these records back from France. She had these Manitas de Plata records - a flamenco guitarist from the Camargue region of France. I remember putting them on and loving them.'
It was the start of what he now sees as a series of signs pointing him toward flamenco. "My mum was trying to find a guitar teacher because she knew I loved the guitar. I had a little toy guitar... The first teacher I had was a flamenco player. So the first pieces I learned were flamenco."
By the time he was a teenager, fate intervened again. His father retired to Arles in the south of France, in a neighbourhood Cook described as "the gypsy area". The family's neighbour? Nicolas Reyes, lead singer of the Gipsy Kings. "It wasn't just the neighbours. Kids out in the street would be playing that gypsy style where they're pounding the guitar like a percussionist. You didn't see that in Canada. I was like, what is that?"
Yet Cook's relationship with the guitar wasn't always smooth. At 13, he walked away from it altogether. "I was getting a lot of pressure to play classical guitar and to do competitions. I just wanted to play basketball. It was hard to give it up, because it was one of the few things I was really good at.' A casual moment brought him back: a friend wanted to learn the guitar, and Cook offered to help. "He didn't even know I played. I started showing him and I saw how much fun he was having. I thought, oh yeah, guitar can be fun."
Years later, having trained in classical and jazz at top schools, including the Royal Conservatory and Berklee, Cook was working steadily as a composer when he wrote a piece for local television. "Every time they played it, the switchboard would light up... People were phoning, trying to find out what that music was. And I kept saying, I'm a composer, I don't do music for the public.' But the calls kept coming. By the end of that year, in 1994, he decided to record an album. He played all the instruments and mixed it himself. "I remember going to those places where you could order CDs. They asked how many I wanted. I said, what's the smallest amount? They said 500. I said, let's get 500. They said, for pennies more, you could have 1,000. I said, I'm never going to sell 1,000... they'll be in my basement for the rest of my life."
Instead, Tempest sold out immediately. "I did a radio interview and a TV performance on the first day. Instantly, they were gone. Then the distributor said, we need 2,000 more. I said, I can't afford to make more. They said, we'll give you the money.' The album climbed the Billboard charts, and by that summer Cook was playing the Catalina Jazz Festival in California. "They said, you can play during the intermission at the bar. I thought, what a waste of time. But once we started playing, people came rushing in. There was a line outside. By the end of the weekend, the head of the festival asked me to play in the All-Star Jam." Before his name was even announced, he received a standing ovation.
Despite three decades of touring and recording since then, Cook said his music continues to evolve. "What I play now is a little bit of everything mixed together. It's not really flamenco. It's a kind of fusion." Even the flamenco community has taken notice. "Spanish websites are starting to talk about me as an important figure in flamenco. I always feel like, who am I? I don't live in Spain... But any music, to live, has to change. Perhaps it's because I'm not from Spain and doing something different that it helps flamenco in some way. I'm part of the flamenco diaspora."
The cultural crossovers have not gone unnoticed in the Middle East. One of Cook's most requested tracks in the region is his reinterpretation of the Arabic classic Qadduka Al-Mayyas, which he adapted after hearing a stripped-down version by Egyptian and Palestinian-Canadian friends. "I loved it. I started adding guitars, drums, strings... I was thinking, that could be a rumba."
In 2008, Cook performed at the Dubai Jazz Festival unaware the song had found an audience here. "We didn't put it on the list. After the concert, people asked, 'Why didn't you do the song?' We said, what song? They said, the song!' The same happened during this tour. Just hours before taking the Abu Dhabi stage on Saturday night, violinist Fethi Nadjem was Googling the lyrics backstage. Despite the last-minute scramble, the performance was a standout moment of the night. As Fethi sang the Arabic lyrics and Sherine Tohamy accompanied on the oud, the crowd erupted dancing, clapping and cheering through the entire number. Cook performed alongside a five-piece band that included guitarist Matt Sellick, bassist Dan Minchom, drummer Matias Recharte, and special musical guest Sherine Tohamy on oud in Abu Dhabi.
Despite his international reach, Cook remains something of an anomaly in today's music scene. "Most people listen to pop music with a singer. People ask, who's the singer in your band? And I go, there isn't one. That makes it hard to describe. But the very thing that makes it hard to define is also what makes it last.' Asked why his music resonates so strongly across the region, his largest fanbase on Instagram is in Iran, where he's never performed, he cited musical history. "The music of the Middle East is in the DNA of flamenco. When you take flamenco and play it with oud, it just works. There's some connection."
Cook pointed to Ziryab, a 9th-century musician who migrated from Baghdad to Andalusia and revolutionised music in the region. "When he arrived in southern Spain, it was like the Beatles showed up. People went crazy for him. He influenced music, fashion, even hygiene. Flamenco later absorbed that Andalusian sound created under his influence.' He added that the gypsies arrived in Spain 500 years after Ziryab and picked up the Andalusian musical traditions that eventually gave birth to flamenco. "So, for me, the music of the Middle East is in flamenco's DNA. It's already there."
During the Covid-19 lockdowns, Cook launched a self-directed video series, reinterpreting older compositions and creating new ones in his home studio. One of the earliest tracks he revisited became an unexpected fan favourite - and literally broke his guitar. 'I just sat down and thought, since it's just me, I won't do drums and bass and everything. I'll just play,' he said. 'And I'm having a great old time, it's sounding good… and then I look at the guitar and I realise this crack has been forming all the way down. I'd been hitting the guitar too hard.' The song, eventually titled Tormenta, made it onto his Libre album in a fully arranged version.
Cook is now taking the summer off to rest and record on a private island he owns in Canada. "Not in a billionaire kind of way," he laughed. "In Canada, a regular person can own an island. I'm going to take my boat, go out there, and make some music." After 30 years on stage, that DIY spirit hasn't changed. Nor has the question: what exactly is Jesse Cook's music? Even he can't answer that. "You kind of have to hear it to know what it is. If you like it, I'm the only one doing that.'
A platinum-selling artist and Juno Award winner, Cook has featured in five PBS television specials, showcasing his virtuosity and creative range. Beyond critical praise, his broad cross-cultural appeal is evident in his digital footprint, with more than 900 million streams and views across platforms—a number that continues to grow by over 85 million each year.