Jazz Articles about Anthony Ortega

Anthony Ortega

by Rex Butters
August 31, 2008

You know you're talking about a jazz musician when the artist in question has played and recorded with Elvis, Streisand, Sinatra, Lalo Schifrin, the Lighthouse All-Stars, Quincy Jones, Gerald Wilson, Clifford Brown, Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton, Paul Bley, Dinah Washington and Frank Zappa, to name a few, while still finding time to record soundtracks, release highly regarded and collectible sessions as leader, experience a resurgent wave of acclaim in Europe and despite it all remain virtually unknown in the US.

Anthony Ortega: Afternoon In Paris

by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
June 22, 2007

The quixotic enthusiasm of Hatology Records' chief Werner X. Uehlinger for the idiosyncratic music of one- time Lionel Hampton sideman Anthony Ortega continues with this release of a series of solo performances and saxophone-bass duets recorded in 2002 and 2005. The link to Ortega's quiet classic in the sax-bass vein, New Dance (Hatology, 1966), is made explicit with the inclusion of a previously unreleased version of “Ornithology" from that session. Brighter and bouncier than the post-millennium material on the rest ...

Anthony Ortega

by Robert Spencer
January 10, 2001

Here is a man who has played with Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, Maynard Ferguson, Paul Bley, Quincy Jones, Don Ellis, Dinah Washington, and {{Ella Fitzgerald. Here is a man whose alto saxophone playing has been compared to Charlie Parker's and Ornette Coleman's--both with just cause. Here is a man whose Sixties sessions, long out of print for the most part, are revered by collectors, who hunt them down assiduously--because there have been a few people all these years who knew ...

Anthony Ortega Trio: Scattered Clouds

by Robert Spencer
January 1, 2001

Here is unsung reedman Anthony Ortega in the most stripped-down of contexts: in contrast to the nonet that he recorded with on 1994's Neuf, and even to earlier quartet recordings, here he appears in a bare trio setting. There is a piano and drums but no bassist, and one is not missed: Mike Wofford's piano playing has enough body, and Ortega's saxophone enough rhythmic flight, for the bass not to be missed.

So here is Anthony Ortega, a calling-card showing ...