Anthony Robert "Tony" Ortega (June 7, 1928 – October 30, 2022) was a jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, and flautist who is one of only a handful of Mexican-Americans who became prominent jazz musicians. Rather than let himself be nudged into Latin bands over the decades, Anthony carved out a niche for himself as a flavorist, most often on alto sax. His tone has a sweet, urgent, pleading edge that was favored by many arrangers. As for his technique, Anthony had the ability to launch effortlessly into lightning-fast improvisational runs.
Ortega was born in in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. He began to play the saxophone at age 14, followed by the clarinet a year later. His sax teacher, Lloyd Reese, had also mentored such future jazz luminaries as Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy. He was heavily-influenced by and introduced to musicians by his cousin, Ray Vasquez.
In 1947, Ortega played with Earle Spencer. From 1948 to 1951, he served in the United States Army. He then became a member of Lionel Hampton's group, which toured Europe; while there he also recorded with Gigi Gryce, Art Farmer, and Milt Buckner, as well as with Norwegian players while in Oslo in 1954. He also met his future wife, pianist and vibraphonist Mona Ørbeck, at the Penguin jazz club in Oslo; they married later that year. His debut album, “The Anthony Ortega Quartet,” was also released in 1954 was awarded the Best Jazz Record of the Year in Norway. Upon his return to southern California, he put a band together and worked briefly in Los Angeles, but relocated to New York City in 1955, playing with Nat Pierce for two years.
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In 1956 he released the album “A Man and His Horns” which was produced by longtime friend Quincy Jones. In 1958, he returned to Los Angeles, where he worked with Paul Bley, Claude Williamson, and the Lighthouse All Stars. His all-star 1961 album, “A Man and His Horns,” featured him double-tracking all of the multiple horn parts. In the 1960s, he played mostly in the Southwest and California, and worked on film soundtracks such as The Pawnbroker (1964). Ortega recorded the soundtrack for the movie Gloria (1980) starring Gena Rowlands. He can be heard playing throughout the movie with Tommy Tedesco on guitar. His TV credits included “The Lucy Show” “The Bobby Darin Show” and “The Julie Andrews Show.”
Here’s “Handful of Stars” from above LP
He also collaborated with Dinah Washington, Frank Sinatra, Frank Zappa, Tony Bennett, Tony Orlando, Barbra Streisand and Marvin Gaye and many more. He performed on film soundtracks, including playing the bravura improvised sax solo in the Oscar-nominated “An Unmarried Woman” and was in the house bands for ABC’s “The Julie Andrews Show” and “The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour.” He also taught jazz master classes at universities in France and made cutting-edge albums that won international acclaim.
He worked with Don Ellis and Gerald Wilson in 1965 and with Lalo Schifrin in 1968. In the years 1966 and 1967, Ortega’s unconventionality came into critical focus with the release of “New Dance” and “Permutations.” Though he didn’t know it at the time, these two albums would signify a monumental shift, not only in his personal life, but also for the world of jazz. “The Shadow of Your Smile,” (“New Dance”) for instance, represents a radical departure from the bebop of his youth, to the exploring, meditative, sound that he had been secretly flirting with even under Maynard Ferguson. In his hands, this popular song is almost unrecognizable, given feudal dread by Chuck Domanico’s omnipresent base, and barely held together by Ortega’s teasing, heartbroken sax. In the early-1970s, he toured internationally with Quincy Jones and continued working with Wilson into the 1980s. He toured and recorded in Paris several times in the 1990s.
Since 2011 Ortega, the man whose life spaned the major eras of jazz music, an individual who has outlived some of the bigger names who have eclipsed his own, led a Sunday jam session nearly every week at Mr. Peabody’s Bar & Grill in Encinitas,until his health began to falter. The devoted saxophonist’s final performance took place Aug. 21, 2022. His only concession to age was to perform seated rather than standing. He died of complications from pneumonia at a hospital in Encinitas at 94 on October 30, 2022.
“Tony was a master,” said Mark Dresser, a music professor at UC San Diego who played bass regularly with Ortega at San Diego jam sessions in the 1970s. “He was a true improviser, both completely rooted in the tradition, essentially linear, and yet completely free in his playing,” Dresser said. “He had an expansive sound ... rhythmic vitality, and a willingness to dig into the sonic corners of where the music took him. He was remarkable.”
(Edited from Wikipedia , L.A.
Times, The Coast News & Jazz Wax)
