Rumba flamenco guitarist Jesse Cook releases his new album, ‘past the breakwater,’ on September 18 through Coach House Music, distributed by Believe. The 10-track record follows two singles already circulating, “forever” and “you were looking north,” out now, and lands alongside the Forever Live Tour, an extensive run of North American dates that carries Cook and his band well into 2027, with a marquee stop at Casino Rama in Orillia, Ontario this November.
Known for his singular fusion of flamenco, jazz, classical and world music, Cook leans further into his jazz roots on this project than ever before. He describes the intentions he carried into writing and recording the album: “As a music lover, there’s a category of music I have always listened to on rainy days, or late nights with friends. Albums like Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and Round Midnight, Getz/Gilberto (Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto), Keith Jarrett’s Koln Concert. Albums you can put on and live in. Quiet albums. Albums that breathe.” Cook set out to build something from that same tradition, an album meant to be lived in rather than simply heard.
That instinct shaped the recordings themselves. “I wanted to leave more space in these recordings,” Cook explains. “So, some of these songs are just Spanish guitar and double bass. I wanted to be able to hear every note, every articulation.” The result strips his arrangements down to their essentials, giving each phrase room to resonate and each pause its own presence.
To find that kind of quiet, Cook recorded much of ‘past the breakwater’ in a cabin on a small, remote island in the lake country of the Canadian Shield, accessible only by boat. “The stillness there is protected by rows of ancient shoals,” he says. “Like prehistoric sentinels, a breakwater against the storms that lay beyond. Sometimes I need to get away from everything, so I can just get lost in the music.” The island retreat gives the album both its title and its unhurried, breathing quality.
A global artist in every sense, Cook redefines what Spanish guitar music can sound like to audiences far beyond its traditional borders. Born in Paris and raised in Toronto, he has spent the last three decades building a devoted following for his rumba flamenco sound, routinely selling out performance halls from London to Los Angeles and Milan to Montreal. His catalogue has now surpassed a billion streams and views across platforms, with combined lifetime streams and views standing at 1.164 billion as of March 2026, led by 425 million streams on Pandora, 175 million views across Instagram user generated content, 155 million YouTube views and 145 million Spotify streams. His following spans 661,000 Instagram followers, 307,000 YouTube subscribers and 299,000 monthly Spotify listeners, numbers that place him among the most streamed instrumental guitarists in the world.
Cook composed, arranged, produced, recorded and mixed ‘past the breakwater’ entirely himself, with mastering by Chris Gehringer at Sterling Sound. He is joined throughout by longtime collaborators Marito Marques on drums and percussion, Will Lamoureux on strings and violin, and Ross MacIntyre on double bass, with cellist Jill Sauerteig featured on “forever.”
‘past the breakwater,’ track listing:
forever
you were looking north
past the breakwater
life in e minor
easton revisited
the secret shape of things
eleven unnecessary turns
floating on the silence
my beautiful exile
long shadows and small mercies
The Forever Live Tour begins the day after the album’s release and keeps Cook on the road for months, opening with an extensive run through Quebec this fall before heading into the northeastern United States and Ontario in November, then the American Southwest and West Coast in January and February, with additional dates in Florida and Georgia to follow in the spring. Cook will keep the tour going further into 2027 with additional dates across Canada and Europe.
Forever Live Tour dates:
September 19, Théâtre de Lac-Brome, Lac-Brome, QC
September 21, Grand Théâtre de Québec, Quebec City, QC
September 22, Théâtre de la Ville, Longueuil, QC
September 24, Salle Pauline-Julien, Sainte-Geneviève, QC
September 25, Théâtre Lionel-Groulx, Sainte-Thérèse, QC
September 26, Théâtre Hector-Charland, L’Assomption, QC
September 27, Théâtre Granada, Sherbrooke, QC
September 30, Espace Théâtre Muni-Spec, Mont-Laurier, QC
October 1, Théâtre du Vieux-Terrebonne, Terrebonne, QC
October 2, Théâtre du Casino Lac-Leamy, Gatineau, QC
October 3, Centre des Arts Juliette-Lassonde, Saint-Hyacinthe, QC
November 5, City Winery Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
November 6, Groton Hill Music Center, Groton, MA
November 7, HOPE Center for the Arts, Springfield, MA
November 8, Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport, MA
November 10, The Kate, Old Saybrook, CT
November 11, Infinity Hall, Norfolk, CT
November 12, Narrows, Fall River, MA
November 13, Alder Hall at NY Society for Ethical Culture, New York, NY
November 14, Victoria Theatre at NJPAC, Newark, NJ
November 15, Sellersville Theatre, Sellersville, PA
November 17, Rams Head On Stage, Annapolis, MD
November 18, Attucks Theatre, Norfolk, VA
November 19, Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
November 20, Hart Theatre at The Egg, Albany, NY
November 21, The Temple at Tellus 360, Lancaster, PA
November 22, Beston Hall, Pittsford (Rochester), NY
November 27, Casino Rama, Orillia, ON
January 14, Tower Theatre, Bend, OR
January 15, Newmark Theatre, Portland, OR
January 16, The Shedd, Jaqua Concert Hall, Eugene, OR
January 17, Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA
January 19, McCallum Theatre, Palm Desert, CA
January 20, Crest Theatre, Sacramento, CA
January 21, Rio Theatre, Santa Cruz, CA
January 22, Lobero Theatre, Santa Barbara, CA
January 23, Saban Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
January 25 and 26, Smith Center, Las Vegas, NV
January 27, Irvine Barclay Theatre, Irvine, CA
January 28, Magnolia, San Diego, CA
January 29, Mesa Arts Center, Ikeda Theater, Mesa, AZ
January 30, Fox Tucson Theatre, Tucson, AZ
January 31, KiMo Theatre, Albuquerque, NM
February 1, The Lensic, Santa Fe, NM
February 3, Paramount Theatre, Denver, CO
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