Two chances to catch Jesse Cook this week

Internationally acclaimed guitar virtuoso Jesse Cook returns to the Maritimes to perform in support of his latest release, One World.

Released in 2015, One World is Cook’s ninth studio album and it debuted at #1 on the jazz and world music charts in Canada. It was recorded in his home studio and features a guest appearance from Tommy Emmanuel. After two decades of traveling the world pursuing inspiration, innovation and collaboration, the Paris-born, Toronto-raised Cook changed course. Instead of having a foreign legion of performers, he relied on his own devices and instead of exploring cul de sacs of music — flamenco, classical, rumba, world beat, pop, blues or jazz — he united them.

Cook says, “I wanted to make what I was doing feel like Constantinople, the ancient city that existed between the East and the West. It was 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 though that port.”

A guitarist, composer and producer, Cook is an 11-time JUNO Award nominee and his album Free Fall won the JUNO Award for Instrumental Album of the Year in 2001. Cook is a three-time recipient of the Canadian Smooth Jazz Award for Guitarist of the Year and he studied at York University’s Royal Conservatory of Music and Berklee College of Music. His music has been featured in multiple Olympic games and “Sex and the City” and he has performed with the likes of B.B. King, Ray Charles and The Chieftains.