Jazz Articles about Willie Oteri

Take Five With Willie Oteri

by Willie Oteri
January 7, 2014

Meet Willie Oteri: An anomaly in the music world having survived tragedy and financial hardship that forced him to quit music as a profession during the early part of his career, Willie Oteri has come back to music. With a small budget he released two well-received blues/rock albums in the late '90s before moving to Austin, Texas where he befriended some of Austin's top jazz musicians. Wanting to pursue the freedom of electric jazz and improvisation, Oteri contracted producer ...

Shrunken Head Shop: Live in Germany

by Glenn Astarita
September 12, 2013

This international group is captured performing improvised music in Germany, featuring guest trumpeter Dave Laczko on three tracks that reside somewhere between Miles Davis' Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1970) era and experimental trumpeter Jon Hassell's work. Laczko and guitar whiz Willie Oteri have also recorded under the moniker WD-41. Indeed, both artists are known for pushing the envelope within progressive rock and avant, jazz fusion circles, assertively manifesting these exploratory processes here. The set is primarily constructed on slow ...

WD-41+2: Temi Per Cinema

by Glenn Astarita
December 14, 2010

Temi Per Cinema is the follow-up to guitarist Willie Oteri and trumpeter Dave Laczko's self-produced WD-41 (2009), with the addition of lap steel dulcimer and beat jockey artist Dino J.A. Deane and drummer Scott Amendola. Collectively, the musicians have been at the forefront of new music-making, amid variable flavors and shades, bordering on the avant-garde, jazz-rock, electronica and other intertwining genres. Here, the WD-41+2 unit expands upon applications and concepts, first evidenced on the 2009 effort. At times, ...

Willie Oteri / Dave Laczko: WD-41

by Glenn Astarita
July 24, 2009

The conceptual, avant-garde mode of electronics-based implementations receives a slender uplift, thanks to guitarist and effects maestro Willie Oteri's collaboration with trumpeter Dave Laczko. This 2009, download-only, release is a spacey trip; chock full of loops, streaming synth noises, and fractured sojourns into the cosmic void.

Oteri's résumé includes collaborations with latter-day King Crimson musicians and former Frank Zappa hired guns, among other notables. In light of this, he's obviously well-seasoned in the progressive rock realm, amid the ...

Willie Oteri: Seek and Ye Shall Find

by Igor Petruska
December 8, 2004

One of the biggest draws to the Jazz for Sale festival as part of the ongoing Visegrad Days 2004 was without a doubt the performance of the American/Slovak Willie Oteri and the Oskar Rozsa Quartet. The excellent bass guitarist Oskar Rozsa, trumpet player, keyboards and sound experimenter Lubos Priehradnik, and drummer Marcel Buntaj - the Slovak part of the quartet need no introduction to regular readers of Music.box. Guitarist Willie Oteri, born in California, is a very respected player on ...

Willie Oteri: Spiral Out

by Marco Piva
April 16, 2004

The eclectic US guitarist Willie Oteri, who played with or supported artists like Bob Seger, Neil Young, Doobie Brothers, Chaka Khan and Passenger and has been a member of Jazz Gunn, has the chance to cooperate with producer Ronan Chris Murphy (who has worked with King Crimson amongst others) for this Spiral Out that he records with such artists as the rhythm section of King Crimson (Tony Levin on bass and Pat Mastelotto on drums), Mike Keneally (Frank Zappa) on ...

Willie Oteri's Jazz Gunn: Concepts of MateMaToot

by Todd S. Jenkins
September 1, 2001

Hot and cool jam-band excellence from Austin, Texas. Over the past decade, the stigma has faded from Miles Davis’ electric experiments, and many valuable elements in the music have been recognized as it finally moved into its time. Willie Oteri and Jazz Gunn offer an enticing update of the electric Miles aesthetic, including power-pumped covers of two Davis fusion staples (“Spanish Key” and Joe Zawinul’s “Pharaoh’s Dance”). The liner notes don’t shed any light on just what “MateMaToot” represents, but ...