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Still working on that hot first release.
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Bio
This is John Otto. If he had been an author, we would be reading a novel of high adventure starring that risk-taker and scoundrel, Rance Keller (an actual alias). John, thankfully, has brought his experiences to life through the artistry of music, creating a sumptuous crossover from jazz to funk to new age with no dividing line. Music that highlights the higher life helping to make the good, and the not so good in life just...better.
He says, “I won’t let you leave me without experiencing a great hook, or a musical moment that you just can’t get out of your head.”
Cutting his teeth on the Motown Music scene in Detroit, John kept his guitar and musical focus while working as a student of nursing at Ypsilanti State Mental Hospital for the criminally insane. Here he witnessed firsthand the healing effects of music, artfully applied, on the troubled spirits of the patients. Snapshots of suffering and relief live in the riffs and melody of John’s music.
As wanderlust began to prove a demanding mistress, he hitchhiked to Key West and hired onto a sailboat charter “You can’t disguise what you are made of when sailing into a storm with no land in sight. Facing the reality of death at sea, the songs I heard in the rigging are tunes I won’t forget,” John said. And this is evident in his creative style of ferrying the listener from calm to crescendo and back with a story of their own to take home.
From Boca Raton all the way to the west coast John honed his skills as lead guitarist in a jazz fusion band where, landing in Los Angeles, they continued in their mad rush to succeed in the business of making music. A diving accident cramped his style for only a short while, but moved him to reconsider the pace in which he wanted to live. So...nestled in a band house over Boulder, the Colorado Rocky Mountains became home and John took advantage of some fantastic opportunities to perform in Denver as a side man with world greats Charles Mingus, Jean Luc Ponti, Al DiMeola and Firefall. The local jazz, funk, pop, rock and blues bands kept him working in clubs, studios and Red Rocks concerts while he earned his degree from the University of Colorado in theater and communications. It’s easy to recognize the influences of drama and accessibility in his song writing.
His walks on the wild side of heli-skiing the blinding snow powder of Marble Mountain, blazing a snowmobile trail over the Great Divide, or motorcycling where donkeys fear to tread, have left him in a cast for months, in treatment for 3rd degree burns...AND with an honesty in his music that is electrified by his courage to explore.
Today, John is recording in his own 24-track studio, Audio Beach, located in the harbor town of Saugatuck, on a peninsula between Lake Kalamazoo and the great Lake Michigan. This unique setting of spectacular sunsets, and crashing waves is a constant energy source that has inspired the creation of Vin Sincere (Yes, that’s Vincent’s Ear).
Through experiences of great accomplishments and terrifying disasters, he has always sought a measure of happiness which is reflected in his music, especially this latest CD “Look At Me Now”. Songs from this CD are currently playing on WVOF 88.5 in New York City and various Indie music venues.
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