Everybody loves Flamenco Guitar ! The positive passion, the hypnotic rhythms and the lightning jolt to the nervous system that rivals 10 cups of coffee! The lucky few who live and breathe their craft carry an image that's almost legendary. Who wouldn't want a little Don Juan in their persona living the life of a longhaired free spirited troubadour with a closet full of groovy white fluffy shirts.

Jesse Cook has heard all the stereotypes and most of them include that sensual side of love he says "this stuff wakes people up, if you know what I mean '' adding, " it's very passionate, I had a guy tell me ' I got your new CD I'm going home to Trinidad tomorrow, I'm going to get my girlfriend, turn down the light and….' I had to cut in and say, hey I don't need that much information.". This soundtrack for foreplay is Cook's fourth and newest CD Free fall, part Flamenco, and a little afro-Cuban and lively enough to make anybody's mojo rise.

In a genre full of posers and imitators taking the cookie cutter approach to flamenco, Jesse Cook's big advantage is simply his history with the guitar. "I've always loved music inspired by flamenco, my mother played lots of it when I was a kid, it was that fiery and fast guitar playing that attracted me. That's the first style that I played when I was six".

Interestingly it's that very style that made life difficult for Cook with his record label in the beginning. Narada, (a breeding ground for mostly New-Age artist) didn't know what to do with this ethnic-fusion picker. "The people at Narada are great and very supportive but when I arrived we were treated like black sheep on the label" he says "here's this crazy rumba guitarist from Toronto who wasn't dressing in pastel colors". In fact Jesse Cook altered the landscape at Narada helping the label cross-over to a new "world" audience but it wasn't easy, he says "there was this photo shoot where I did shots that were not nude but there was certainly clothing missing in key areas, that got a big uproar, it's the fact that these pictures exist is what makes me an artist".

Born in France and raised in Canada, Jesse Cook was always surrounded by creativity, from an artistic point of view nudity was just another expression he adds "I grew up in a family of artists, we've all seen pictures of Demi Moore or Janet Jackson with someone holding her breasts. That is all part of the world we live in" but Cook knows when the line has been crossed "Of course there's the Pornographic side to nudity and I understand how that offends people but lets not forget artistically the human body is very natural" In the last year since the release of Free fall Cook's carreer has taken a leap to another level with airplay on a lot more radio stations in the U.S. and video play on both Much Music and Much More Music in Canada and VH-1 down south. An appearance on Jay Leno didn't hurt

Now with Narada owned by Virgin records, Cook has a stronger support system for "Freefall" an album that relies on the very foundation that created Flamenco, Passion. This was easily one of last years top CDs in any genre featuring a deliciously lazy 'Virtue' and 'All That Remains' and of course the hit single we all heard last year 'Fall at Your Feet' featuring Danny Wilde of the Rembrandts. You will enjoy this one!

by John Beaudin

	Tempest	Narada	1995	Click to Buy
	Gravity	Narada	1996	Click to Buy
	Vertigo	Narada	1998	Click to Buy
	Free Fall	Narada	2000	Click to Buy