Rocking show

A Jesse Cook concert is not like a Saturday afternoon at the Met.

People often think a show from the Canadian guitarist will be a classical concert.

“It’s more like a rock concert in the sense that there’s crazy, amazing percussion and drums,” Cook said. “People are often up dancing by the end of the show.”

Cook is performing Oct. 19 at the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium; it’s not his first show in the city and has developed a loyal fan base across the globe. But he always welcomes new fans.

His stop in Thunder Bay is part of a tour, starting in southern Ontario and ending in Seattle, Wash., to continue promotion of his 2009 album The Rumba Foundation.

Initially, Cook wanted to mix Cuban rumba music with rumba flamenco from Spain. The latter is a mixture of traditional Cuban rumba sailors would bring back to Spain and the flamenco music of the gypsies.

“That was 150 years ago,” said Cook. “I thought why not mix them back together and see how those two forms sit together now 150 years later.”

But his idea eventually transformed as the music he played stretched beyond Cuba, including the entire Caribbean and finally Colombia.
Cook travelled to Bogota, Colombia and recorded The Rumba Foundation with the group Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto; the group won a Latin Grammy in 2007 and are legends in their home country.

“These are old, old guys,” he said. “They live in the northern part of Colombia and they make their instruments by hand. They’re the real deal. They’re not modern, urban people trying to shine a light backwards. This is the music they grew up with making and they do it in the completely traditional, historic way.”

“And yet, they have become legends and their music is being catalogued at the Smithsonian,” he added.

Not only was it a learning experience for Cook, but it must have been a strange experience for Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto to work with a Canadian artist on a hybrid of styles.

Cook has released seven studio albums in 15 years and said that when successful in the music industry, there is often pressure for the next album to be an imitation.

“I could keep making those albums over and over again, but what’s the point?” Cook said.

“My feeling is if you don’t keep trying new things and experimenting and taking risks, you’re not really an artist.”

He likened making an album to playing in a sandbox, leaving time to play and wander off into the wild.

“You have to have time to experiment and make things up and not do what’s been tried before,” he said.
With his next record, Cook is continuing to explore new musical paths.

Tentatively scheduled to be released in September 2012, he said it will be a “pretty severe departure” from his other albums.
Usually rooted in rumba flamenco, Cook has always tried to go bigger, faster and higher with each album, but this time he’s keeping it simple.

“It’s not about conquering new heights,” he said. “It’s about trying to see what you can do with one note instead of 100.”