Jesse Cook

Tickets are $20, $25 and $35 (plus $2 service charge). They are available from the KiMo Box office and Hold My Ticket (112 2nd St SW), 505-886-1251, Monday to Friday 9 AM - 6 PM, Sat & Sun 11 AM - 6 PM.

Look for Jesse's new PBS special "Jesse Cook - Live in Concert" on KENW - New Mexico's most music-friendly public television station. 

Albuquerque folks with DirecTV can watch it on Sunday, March 3 at 8:30 pm on KENW's hi-def 3-1 channel.
You can also find it on DISH Network on KENW's regular 3-2 channel on Monday, March 4 at 8 pm and Thursday, March 7 at 10 pm.

Born in Paris, Jesse Cook [web site | Amazon.com] was inspired to pick up the guitar at age three by gypsy guitar legend Manitas de Plata, and his passion grew from there. Summers spent with his father in the gypsy barrio in Arles ingrained a love of rumba flamenco in the young guitarist, while impromptu jam session with the likes of neighbor Nicolas Reyes, lead singer of the Gipsy Kings, honed his skills.

Based in Toronto, Jesse Cook launched his career in Southern Ontario and has been recording and performing music internationally for over seventeen years. He is a JUNO Award-winning artist and three-time recipient of the Canadian Smooth Jazz Award for Guitarist of the Year. His previous release, The Rumba Foundation, debuted at #1 on iTunes Canada and the DVD for the release premiered on PBS.

The past two years have seen Cook tour extensively to sold-out crowds throughout the world, performing at both the Singapore and Dubai Jazz Festivals, the Cumbre Tajín Festival in Mexico, and electrifying audiences from the U.S. to Italy to Lebanon. With over one million album sales worldwide, Jesse Cook has spawned a truly global fan base.

Cook is touring behind his eighth studio album, The Blue Guitar Sessions, released in September 2012. "I wanted to make a record that was more personal," says Cook. "Something intimate with more space to it than my previous work, the kind of music that I would want to listen to after midnight. I guess you could call it my grown-up album."

Cook was inspired by Adele's 21, which he played excessively. The album emboldened him to tackle a long simmering personal objective and create a "blue mood" record.

"It was the simplicity of it," says Cook of Adele's work. "For me it was amazing that an album, where many of the tracks were just voice and piano, was a pop record. I loved it.  It creates a world where we get to really hear her voice and also the pianist can be more expressive. It just becomes a much more intimate album, a much more personal album and I thought I would love to do that."

The result is a captivating 14-track album recorded on a pair of vintage microphones, which he had exhaustively searched for to replicate the mood of recordings from the Miles Davis era. Sound is of the utmost importance to him as a musician, producer and engineer.