Photograph:  "Jesse, you're breaking my heart!  You're shaking my confidence daily!'  Oh to play the guitar like that!

artist:  Jesse Cook featuring Jeremy Fisher

songwriters:  Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel

date released:  2009 by Jesse Cook

Jesse Cook is a Toronto-based guitarist, born in Paris to Canadian parents. Like other guitarists of his style of music, he incorporates funky Jazz, Latin and w=

World Music into his playing. 

As a toddler, he was fascinated by the guitar and tried to copy the sounds he heard coming from his parents' recordings of Manitas de Plata, a famous Gypsy guitarist from the region of Southern France known as the Camargue. 

After his parents separated, Jesse followed his mother to Canada while his father remained in Arles, France, where his neighbour was Nicolas Reyes, the lead singer of the Gipsy Kings.  During visitations with his father, Jesse was influenced by the rhythmic, flamenco and/or rumba beat, which is evident in his cover of Cecilia.

 In 2001, Cook won a Juno Award in the Best Instrumental Album category for "Free Fall."   In 2009, he was Acoustic Guitar Magazine's Player's Choice Award silver winner in the Flamenco category (gold went to Paco de Lucia). He is a three-time winner of the Canadian Smooth Jazz award for Guitarist of the Year and numerous other awards.