|
A name taken from a small mountain
town in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Dotsero means “something
unique” according to a Ute Native American legend.
It means DOT-ZERO on the earliest geographical railroad
maps, but to jazz fans worldwide, DOTSERO means Smooth Jazz
at its best, full of energy and spontaneity that few artists
in the genre have been able to match. The band has performed
at major jazz festivals: Red Rocks Amphitheater, JVC Winter
Park Jazz Fest, Jazz Tracks Catalina Island Jazz Fest and
the Cancun Jazz Festival, among others. From Ala Carte Ala
Park in San Francisco to West Palm Beach’s Sunfest,
Dotsero has crisscrossed the nation performing its exciting
brand of jazz.
 |
Dotsero’s critically acclaimed
CD “Off the Beaten Path” launched the group
to national prominence in 1990 and paved the way for the
amazing breakthrough success of its second outing, “Jubilee.”
The release spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Radio and Records
charts, was No. 1 on the Gavin Report’s Adult Alternative
chart and spent ten weeks on the Billboard Contemporary
Jazz chart. In 1994, Dotsero released “Out of Hand,”
which cracked the Top 10 on Gavin’s A2 Adult Alternative
chart and the top 25 of the Radio and Records charts, and
received rave reviews from a variety of jazz critics and
radio programmers across the nation. The top 29 radio hit
“Essensual” and 1998’s similarly successful
“Jumpin’ Thru Hoops” kept the momentum
going through the end of the decade. In 2000 Dotsero hooked
up with Smooth Jazz mainstay Russ Freeman to collaborate
on “West of Westchester,” the band’s sixth
project, which was released on Freeman’s own label,
Peak Records, and distributed by Concord Jazz Records. The
project’s success led to the band joining Freeman’s
band, the Ripppingtons, on a successful east coast tour
in which Dotsero stood the audience time and again. “Fresh
Pants,” the band’s 7th CD, was released in 2004
and heralded as “one of the genre’s best of
the year.”
Dotsero lives up to its “something
unique” definition, bringing style, energy, charisma,
humor and most importantly spontaneity to each live performance.
“When people come to hear Dotsero play, they are not
interested in hearing the music, they want to see the music
through performance and feel something as well. Our goal
is for our shows to be a total sensory experience,”
says Stephen Watts, the band’s sax player. “The
best thing is that anything can happen at one of our performances.”
The band has performed with a number of leading jazz acts
over the years including Spyro Gyra, the Yellowjackets,
Lee Ritenour, Wynton Marsalis, Joe Sample, Dave Grusin,
Richard Elliott, Nancy Wilson. David Sanborn, the Rippingtons,
Norman Brown, Stanley Jordan, David Benoit and Jeff Lorber.
Whether at home in Colorado or on the road the world over,
Dotsero takes pride in making its live show something people
will remember.
Few bands have been able
to stay together and focused for even a few years, let alone
the over 18 years Dotsero has been performing and recording
for audiences far and wide. Over the years, Dotsero has
racked up an impressive number of awards and honors. The
core members received their BA’s in music from the
University of Colorado and University of Denver. In 2001,
brothers David and Stephen Watts were named as two of the
top five graduates in Arts for the last 125 years at C.U.
along with jazz greats Glenn Miller and Dave Grusin. In
addition, Dotsero was nominated for an Oasis award for “Best
Up and Coming Group” in 2001 which is the Smooth Jazz
genre’s answer to the Grammy Awards. Along with being
awarded Denver Mayor Wellington Webb’s prestigious
“Excellence in the Arts” honor, Dotsero was
also recognized by the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre
for being a performer and participant in its 60th anniversary
season.
Dotsero has also won the
Westword Magazine Music Awards jazz category for four consecutive
years (1997 - 2000). The Westword Readers’ Poll voted
Dotsero “Best Jazz Band” in Denver for a record
of eleven years in a row. Along with being included on numerous
radio station promo samplers, Dotsero was among the elite
names in Smooth Jazz to be included in home town radio station
CD104.3’s first radio sampler in late 2001. In April
of 2001, Dotsero’s #1 national hit Jubilee reached
stellar success by being taken up on the Space Shuttle Endeavor.
The CD was played during Endeavor’s mission, including
187 orbits of the globe, and the band received a special
certificate commemorating the event. |
