There was little doubt as to what Anthony Ortega wanted to be when he grew up. At the age of fourteen, he asked his mother for a saxophone. Unconvinced that this wasn’t just a phase, she said she would buy the cheapest one, a used Conn alto. He remembers the exact date he got it: 6thFebruary 1943. It turned out not to be a phase. Consigned to the garage, where his family could be spared his first squawking attempts, he picked up the instrument quickly, and had a decidedly good ear for music.
At the behest of his cousin, trombonist Ray Vasquez, he started taking lessons from Lloyd Reese, in addition to taking band in school, and practicing along with the records of legendary jazz man, Charlie Parker. At the age of fifteen, he became a member of the Junior Hep Cats, one of the jazz bands at Jordan High School. Before graduating high school, he would become the director of both the Junior and Senior Hep Cats, playing lead alto sax with the latter.
Out of these school bands grew a quintet known as the Frantic Five. Vasquez landed them a record deal with Mory Rappaport of Rex Records. There was a ban on recording in the late ’40s because of a union dispute, but Rex was supposedly a non-union record label. One side of the record was one of Tony’s original compositions, “The Clutching Hand”, inspired by a scary movie serial he had seen, and the other side was called “Home Run”, composed by pianist Walter Benton. In an all too familiar example of mis-attribution, the record was released as “Ray Vasquez and his Beboppers”, even though Ray Vasquez didn’t actually play on the album.
It was around this time one of Tony’s friends and fellow musicians, Maurice Vendrell, talked Tony into joining the army. Even though the war was over, the draft was still intact, and Maurice thought if they joined the Army voluntarily, they could get into the medical army band in Pasadena, and stay in their home state of California. Tony, a multi-instrumentalist at this point, auditioned by playing the clarinet, and Maurice auditioned by playing the tenor saxophone. They both passed the audition, and were sent to the recruiting office to enlist, then off to basic training, after which they were supposed to come back and join the band. What they weren’t told was that after basic training, they had to attend army band training unit school, for four months, at Ford Ord, California. After six months of basic plus band training, they were informed that everybody in the Pasadena army band had been shipped out. There was no band to go back to. Tony was sent to the Fourth Army Infantry headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. Maurice went to New Orleans, Louisiana. Then, the Korean War started. Although they had enlisted for the standard two years, all of the sudden they were being extended a year. In that time, Ortega managed to become a Corporal, learning how to play military marches and big-band music, even touring with an army production of Anything Goes.
At the end of his tour of duty, Tony returned to L.A. It was at this time he received one of the most important phone calls of his life: Lionel Hampton was in town, and needed an alto saxophonist to replace Jerome Richardson. Hamp took an immediate liking to Tony and hired him to play in his band, which he was taking on the road, and across the ocean. After a tour of the east coast, Hampton made his first tour of Europe. At the time, the band consisted of Clifford Brown, Jimmy Cleveland, Art Farmer, Quincy Jones, Tony Ortega, Clifford Scott, and Clifford Solomon. Hamp wasn’t much into recording, so Brown, Jones, and Ortega arranged their own recording session for Paris’s Vogue Records. During this European tour, they wound up in Norway, where Tony would meet his future wife, Mona Orbeck. They met at the Penguin Club in Oslo. Mona was also a musician, having studied classical piano. He must have missed her a lot when the band when off to Germany, because he called her up on the phone and proposed to her. After the European tour, the band split. Tony went back to L.A., but it wasn’t too long before he booked a flight back to Norway and met Mona’s parents, both classical musicians. He passed the test, and he and Mona were married in a small ceremony in Norway. Jazz was big there at the time, and Tony was already known from the Hampton tour. He recorded a 78 there for Musica which featured “I Can’t Get Started” backed with “Blues for Ortega” which Norwegians lauded at the best jazz record of 1954. Tony and Mona kicked around the club circuit for a few months and did a radio show which Mona’s sister taped off the radio.
When the newlyweds moved back to L.A., Vantage Records showed interest in the tape. They put it on ten-inch vinyl and released it as The Anthony Ortega Quartet. It was around this time that he hooked up with Luis Rivera, who was fronting an organ trio at the time. Rivera immediately booked a tour that took Tony back to the east coast. It was no honeymoon, so Mona flew back east to be with Tony, and, as luck would have it, the gigs dried up, and Rivera returned to L.A.
Undoubtedly weary of travel, Tony took a chance by joining Local 802, a musician’s union that would grant him a card after residing in New York City for three months. In the meantime, Tony hocked his clarinet and was donating blood for money. Well, it just so happened that after the Hampton band broke up, Quincy Jones had stayed behind in New York and was slowly starting to build his own resume. He hired Tony to do a recording called A Man And His Horns, featuring Tony as the bandleader. It was very much Tony’s album: He overdubbed the sax parts, in addition to playing clarinet and flute.
Other gigs followed. Arranger Nat Pierce got Tony some session work at Bethlehem Records. Drummer Jimmy Dee landed him a gig at a strip club on 52nd St. Wild Bill Davis asked him to sit in on a recording session, and the two of them and drummer Chris Colombo did the club thing. This led to an audition at the famous Birdland club, which he passed with flying colours, resulting in some sets with Maynard Ferguson. Unfortunately, their records bombed. Down Beat Magazine ripped Jazz For Young Moderns to shreds. O Little Label of Bethlehem wasn’t getting it done, so once again Tony and Mona made the great egress to L.A. It was a lean time, living at Tony’s mom’s house and getting gigs where they could, namely at Marty’s on the Hill, where Mona got to sit in on vibes. Then Quincy Jones telephoned Tony from New York. He was starting his own band, and wanted Tony to be a part of it. So Tony and Mona drove cross-country, again, to Philadelphia, where they were doing a gig at a place called Pep’s Lounge. Tony was immediately uncomfortable with the band; for one thing, Quincy already had a sax player who was doing most of the solos; and so they parted ways, amiably, with Jones giving him enough money to get back to L.A.
It turned out to be a good move, this time. A club called The Cloister, on Sunset Strip, needed a saxophone player, and they called Tony. One week, the main attraction was Sarah Vaughan, whom Tony had idolized growing up. This meant Tony would have an opportunity to match Vaughan scat-for-scat, but for whatever reason, she didn’t like his horn-blowing, and gave the solos to someone else. Fortunately, Tony’s cousin Ray Vasquez was getting regular work at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe, and, as always, was happy to share his good fortune. Ray was not only playing trombone, but also serving as emcee, and even doing a little bit of singing. He was underwhelmed by the musicianship of some of the bandmembers, and whisperingly asked Tony if he would like to come down and get in on the action. It was a regular gig, and a regular paycheck. Plus, they were drawing big names, like Sammy Davis, Jr. and Liberace.
Tony and Mona moved again, this time to the South Shore, about five minutes from Harrah’s. It was here he got to meet an up-and-coming singer named Barbra Streisand. Tony was so impressed with her singing, he asked her if she would autograph one of her albums for him, and she was happy to oblige. It was also the beginning of one of the longest regular gigs Tony would ever have, a three-year stint in burgeoning Lake Tahoe.
In 1965, the Ortegas moved back to L.A. Gerald Wilson had some work for Tony at a place called The Lighthouse and he was getting ready to go back into the studio to record another album. The album was entitled On Stage and was released on the Pacific Jazz label. Pretty soon Quincy Jones called up, thankfully not from New York, but from right across town. He was assembling musicians to perform the soundtrack for a television program called Hey, Landlord. Shortly thereafter, Jones called him again to play soprano sax on the Rod Steiger film The Pawnbroker. An up-and-coming film composer by the name of Lalo Schifrin was scoring music for Sol Madrid and needed a tenor saxophonist. He asked Jones, who had shown him the ropes in the L.A. studio system, about this fellow Ortega. As you can imagine, Jones gave him high marks and Tony had landed his second film assignment. This led to more film work, including I the Jury, Uncle Joe Shannon, and An Unmarried Woman. Then Bill Hardy called Tony to work on a project called New Dance, an entirely improvised jazz album.
The studio calls were rolling in, and thanks to people like Buddy Collette, Bill Green, and Gerald Wilson, Tony found himself frequently appearing on TV specials for Don Knotts, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra, The Julie Andrews Hour, The Bobby Darin Show, The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour, The Tonight Show, and The Flip Wilson Show. He was also getting work with Nelson Riddle, who asked him to play on the albums The Bright and the Beautiful (on which Tony played flute and tenor sax) and The Riddle of Today.
In 1971, he toured Japan with Percy Faith, and the following year, with Quincy Jones. Around this time, Tony received one of his strangest calls yet, from bass trombonist Kenny Shroyer, who was doing an album with Frank Zappa. Zappa wanted Tony to play an electronically amplified alto saxophone and clarinet for an album entitled Grand Wazoo. 1978 was, as Frank Sinatra might say, “a very good year”. Sinatra was playing the Universal Amphitheater and his opening act was Sarah Vaughan, who needed a sax player. Things went a little better this time: Sarah actually announced Tony’s name and gave him a few solos. The same year, the Ortegas released an album called Rain Dance, on which Tony played amplified bass clarinet and flute, with Mona on vibes. Tony had also recorded music for Zoot Suit, which enjoyed a steady run on Sunset Boulevard.
In 1984, the Ortegas found themselves in Norway. Oslo TV exec Jan Horne was putting together a tribute to Randi Hultin, dubbed “the princess of jazz” in Norwegian, and asked Tony and Mona to take part, Tony on sax, Mona on vibes (and yes, they did drop in to visit Mona’s parents).
Success found Tony in the 1990s in bizarre fashion. His old buddy Bill Hardy called to tell him that Hat Art in Switzerland wanted to purchase the master tapes for New Dance, and another album they had done, called Permutations. They said yes, and found themselves making money from a pair of albums that had flopped in the States and from which they had never made much money the first time around. To add icing on the cake, New Dance won Jazz Album of the Year in Switzerland in 1992, some twenty-five years after it had been recorded. The same year saw Tony accompanying Benny Carter’s band in another tour of Japan. Other recording stints followed, in France of all places, where Tony had enjoyed some of his early success. Anthony Ortega on Evidence was released in ’92, and Neuff was released in 1994, the same year he partnered with Thierry Bruneau on the CD Seven Standards and a Blues. Standards turned out to be the standard for the Ortegas when Mona was asked to take over for Frank Butler at Clem’s in Compton, playing piano and vibes, and asking you-know-who to play sax. The gig turned out to be a lucrative arrangement, every Sunday, for two years. As you can imagine, they played them in a very un-standard way, about as un-standard as Anthony Ortega’s astounding rollercoaster of a career. He performed until he was in his 90s at Mr. Peabody’s in Encinitas, California.
He died in Encinitas, California in October 2022 when he was 94 years old.
Lalo Schifrin recordings
Love Rhapsody from “The Concorde – Airport ’79” (Lalo Schifrin)
Sources:
1. http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=hb8779p537&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00004&toc.depth=1&toc.id=div00004&brand=oac
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Ortega_(musician)