Exclusive
Interview with Jesse Cook
By Piper Henriques / ClassicalGuitarShop.com |
Watch
Jesse Cook Videos! Tempest, Sunsets & Guitars
"Jesse Cook is a virtuoso flamenco guitarist whose captivating
style blends all different types of world music." Combining
16 years of classical guitar study and a rediscovery of flamenco...
This is Masterful perfection, fiery & passionate Rumba Flamenco.
Award winning, Jesse Cook's music will definitely move you!
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: How
did you get started playing guitar?
Jesse Cook: I think like many
guitarists, I started when I was very young, I was about six
years old when my Mom got me lessons. She said I had interest
at about three but it was hard to find a teacher for that young
age. At six, my Mom found a classical guitar academy in Toronto.
I sort of feel fortunate in that one of the first teachers, well
I think the first teacher that I had was a guy named Allen Torax,
who was a flamenco teacher. So early on, you know, I learned
the rasqueados and other rudimentary flamenco techniques. I didn't
realize how much later on that was going to play out in terms
of what I would play later on.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: What
made you interested in flamenco guitar? Was it from the past
lessons?
Jesse Cook: Um, I don't know.
I've always loved this type of music. There's something very
passionate about flamenco music. I should point out too that
what I do is not what they call flamenco puro -- it's not pure
flamenco, the type of flamenco you'd hear in Spain. What I do
is really a hybrid. There's elements of flamenco and flamenco
technique in what I do and then I mix it with elements of pop
and jazz and anything else.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: How
would you describe the elements in your new CD?
Jesse Cook: In the new CD?
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Yeah.
Jesse Cook: It's similar to what
I just mentioned, there are a few pieces that mix elements of
pop grooves and then Armenian daduk with what I do on the guitar
which probably has a more of a Spanish flavor. So, it's really
a kind of mix of various types of world music. Some people call
it a world amalgam.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: As a
music writer and creator, what inspires you?
Jesse Cook: Lots of things inspire
me. Obviously, like most musicians, I don't only create music,
I also listen to a lot of music, influenced by the people I admire.
One of my favorite guitarists is a guy named Vicente Amigo and
he's a Spanish guitarist that I really admire, I really hold
in high esteem. One of the pieces on the last record is actually
sort of a homage to him and his approach to not only playing
but also to producing. He produces a lot of flamenco artists
in Spain these days, he's got a really interesting way of recording
this type of music and the piece on my record that's an homage
to him is actually called, "Querido Amigo," which means
your friend, but also since his last name is Amigo, its sort
of a double-entendre.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Are
there any other stories behind some of the other songs too?
Jesse Cook: Well there's another
piece on the record that's called "Viva" which is sort
of inspired by the work of Carlos Vives who is a Columbian singer-songwriter
and I really love his work. His last record in particular is
a record I listened to a lot the year I was making this record
and I ended up naming a song after him.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: What's
it like to see it all come together, after you finish making
a record?
Jesse Cook: Suprising. Because,
you know, there's a period in any creative process, certainly
for me, there's a period of chaos, where you know it just seems
like there's so many different elements all floating around --
things you like about music, things you'd like to see in the
project but can't figure out how to make it work. In the past,
I would sort of get very anxious when I was making records if
I didn't feel it was all coming together. Now, my approach is:
I've done it enough that I just embrace the chaos, I assume that's
just part of being creative is to kind of let the project run
a little wild, let it run itself for a while and then towards
the end - through editing or shaping or just through time, it
starts to take shape and it starts to sound more like a record.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: What's
it like behind the scenes when you're making it in the studio?
Jesse Cook: I think my approach
to recording is perhaps the more slow fastidious, slightly boring
way that a lot of records are produced, where you record maybe
one or two parts at a time, but you spend a lot of time working
on it and focusing on exactly what's being played. I know some
people do their records live off the floor. They get the whole
band into the studio and hit record and record an album in an
hour or something. And I really wish I could do that, but unfortunately
the kind of records that I really like are the ones where you
know, there's just sort of attention to the production. The artist
that I really admire in terms of producing are people like Peter
Gabriel, Trevor Horn people like that. And I try to create sounds
that are that type of rich layered effect, which I'm sure I don't
do as nearly as well as those guys do, but that's what I'm chasing,
that's what I'd like to do.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Gosh,
you have really nice music. I listen to your CD all the time.
I really enjoy it. How would you describe the difference in playing
live and you know, recording a CD?
Jesse Cook: Well, I think playing
live is a lot more sort of immediately gratifying with my, especially
because I take so long to record things, you know, I don't really
see the end result til many months later whereas playing live,
um, I'm not so nit-picky about our live show. I like to rely
on the things the players in my band can do, I like to give them
a platform to showcase their talents. Usually there's a huge
amount of improvisation each night and I really enjoy that in
the live show. It's much more spontaneous, it's very fun, very
enjoyable, getting out there and performing, touring. I like
the creative control that the recording studio offers: there's
your ability to really sort of work on something until you feel
it's absolutely perfect. I like the spontaneity of the live performance.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: I saw
your enhanced CD, the concert piece and then the video part,
which was really cool, it came across as being very spontaneous,
and lighthearted and it had a real festive quality to it. What
was it like shooting a video?
Jesse Cook: It's a strange thing
shooting a video, because I think we see them all the time on
TV, videos and you know I was a composer before I became sort
what they now call a recording artist. I use to write music behind
the scenes for dance and theater companies and whatever work
I could get and um, I got a record deal and I was recording records
and touring and then the record company said, 'We're going to
need a music video for your album.' To go from being somebody
who looks at music videos and thinks, 'Well, that's interesting,
they've got all these people dancing around' to suddenly finding
myself in a music video -- to kind of look at the screen and
see myself, you know with these people dancing around me. It
was fun, I mean, it was a little bit crazy, but I really enjoyed
it. It was almost an out of body experience. It's not something
I ever anticipated doing.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: 'Cause
it looks like a lot of fun. Do you have any tips you would mind
sharing about guitar playing?
Jesse Cook: Well, I think that
I recommend that people leave their guitars out on a stand instead
of putting them back in the case. It may not be as good for the
instrument unless of course, your apartment is you know, well
humidified. But it's great for your playing 'cause, I find that
if the guitar's out all the time you play it all the time. If
you put it back in the case, then you may not play until the
next day. It's you know, obviously the more you play the better
you get. And also, when I was a kid, I had strict teachers, very
disciplined regiment for practicing which was not that fun. Later
when I sort of got into my teen years I just became more interested
in enjoying practicing, which was to play the things I was really
interested in and work on things I really wanted to be able to
perform on the guitar and things became a lot more fun and I
think that music really should be a labor of love. And often
we as musicians forget that, we get so caught up in our amibitions
that we forget, first and foremost, music should be a love affair.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: What
has it been like seeing your guitar playing develop over the
years?
Jesse Cook: It's funny because
when you're a guitarist, you don't see development. It's like
watching your hair grow, you don't notice it til years later
when you look at photos and you're like, my hair is shorter now
or it's longer or whatever. I think the same is true of your
development as a musician, you know, you're so wrapped up in
whatever it is you're working on at that the moment, and your
evolution seems to be so really slow -- that it's only when you
listen back to work you've done years earlier that you realize
oh, you know, maybe this technique is a little cleaner now and
maybe later my rasqueados are a little stronger, faster, whatever
than they were. It's that sort of thing, it's a very slow and
long road to become a musician I think and also a very gratifying
one. I really enjoy playing the guitar, I think music is my first
love and it will always be my first love.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Is there
something you really want people to know about your music?
Jesse Cook: Is there anything
I'd like people to know about my music? Umm. Well, I mean, I
just I think obviously, music is very personable, people have
to decide for themselves what they like, and you know they get
a chance to listen to my music and see if its something they
like.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Do you
have a favorite song?
Jesse Cook: Of my own? Obviously,
they change all the time but I really like the big long moody
ones, so I like "Falling from Grace" a lot, that was
on Gravity and I like "On Walks the Night" from Free
Fall. I like the ones that are longer and they have more time
to develop. I like those more than the big happy pop ones, you
know the ones that are radio friendly, I don't enjoy as much
as the ones that have the time to develop.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Do you
have any projects coming up?
Jesse Cook: Yes, right now, I'm
working on a, I'm producing three tracks for a young opera singer
named Charlotte Church. I did a few tours with her, she came
to America to do some shows, she asked me to come on as a special
guest and by the end of that tour, she and her mother were interested
in having me produce three tracks for her new record. I just
finished producing a track for Liona Boyd's new record. And I'm
going to be touring with Diana Krall next month and then, a bit
more touring on my own and then I have a new record, I have to
start working on around winter on the next record.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: What
is it like touring with other artists?
Jesse Cook: It's fun, I really
enjoy it. I mean, when I was a composer, I didn't get a lot of
opportunities to perform with other musicians, to collaborate
with other musicians, I was mostly just working on you know writing,
producing, whereas as a guitarist I find myself often being invited
to sit in on other people's records or come and perform with
somebody and I really enjoy it. I mean there's a sort of certain
kind of spontaneity, the fact that you don't really know what's
going to happen. I enjoy that, I like trying to rise to the challenge
of trying to make what I do musically work with something somebody
else is doing even though it may not seem initally as if there's
a good meeting place, I like trying to find where that meeting
place might be.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: What
areas are you going to be touring?
Jesse Cook: We have a website,
jessecook.com and it's got a tour schedule that's constantly
being updated. Right now, we're going to be touring in California
for the most part with Diana Krall we're going to be touring
across Canada in October, we just finished Japan. We might be
doing a special date with Cheiftans in Ireland in late fall,
so those are that's the schedule for now, but if people are interested
in finding out about our tours or having us e-mail us, they can
sign up for that on the web site.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: What's
it like traveling to different parts of the world?
Jesse Cook:It's great, I never
really imagined that I would get to Asia. I always wanted to
go East, I was born in Europe, so going to Europe was something
we did quite often as a family because we had a strong family
connection there, but, you know, getting to Asia always seemed
somewhere very far off and exotic and you know in this last year,
we were in China over Christmas and then Japan in May and it
was very exciting. And I'm very thankful to music having brought
me to those places. I really enjoy that, I love traveling, and
I love seeing the world and getting a chance to meet people in
other parts of the world.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: What
makes a good flamenco guitar? What do you feel?
Jesse Cook: Oh, that's a difficult
question. I'm not a luthier, so I can't describe it from their
point of view, but for me, a flamenco guitar, especially in modern
times, has got to have a round tone, a clear tone, like traditional
guitars have had them, but, its got to have a kind of wildness
that classical guitars don't have that sound of coffee or tobacco,
something kind of really wild and untamed. The flamenco is somewhere
between those two worlds. Now, in the old days, the flamenco
guitars sounded wild, but they also buzzed and they were a little
bit crude, whereas nowadays, people are using them as concert
guitars. So they need to be in tune and have good intonation,
and they have to be well constucted, but at the same time, they
still need that craziness that flamenco really needs to have.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: What
types of instruments did you use to compose for?
Jesse Cook: I tend to write music
for everything. I mean, in this genre of doing what I do, obviously
guitar has got to be a big part of what I'm writing for, because
that's what my audience knows me for. Before I got a record deal,
in fact I seldom wrote for guitar, I wrote for whatever was appropriate
for that show I was doing, which usually meant some kind of orchestra,
but I like writing for the guitar, it's a nice instrument and
I particularly like writing for flamenco guitar, cause I like
the element of percussion that flamenco guitar brings to the
instrument.
ClassicalGuitarShop.com: Thank
you so much for taking the time to do the interview.
Jesse Cook: It's my pleasure,
thank you.
|