Né le 7 juin 1928 à Los Angeles, d’origine mexicaine, il étudie le saxophone avec Lloyd Reese, en compagnie d’Eric Dolphy avec lequel il court les jam-sessions californiennes. À la fin de son service militaire il entre dans l’orchestre d’Hampton (1951). Après son premier séjour parisien il quitte la grande formation du vibraphoniste, retourne en Europe, s’installe en Norvège où il rencontre sa femme, la pianiste Mona Ørbeck, et réalise quelques enregistrements (1954) qu’il fait éditer sous étiquette « Vantage » lors de son retour aux Etats-Unis. En 1955, il s’installe à New York, travaille et enregistre avec Dinah Washington, Quincy Jones, Billy Taylor, Nat Pierce, Herbie Mann et Maynard Fergusson mais ne survit qu’en jouant dans des boîtes de strip-tease. En 1959, il repart pour Los Angeles, écoeuré par le mauvais accueil réservé par la presse spécialisée à son album gravé pour le label « Bethlehem » (« Jazz for Young Moderns »). Il joue avec Paul Bley, Claude Williamson et les Lighthouse All Stars d’Howard Rumsey mais ne trouve que peu d’occasions de présenter sa propre musique, victime du racisme californien envers les « latinos ». Il ne se décourage pas, accepte toutes les besognes alimentaires, s’installe à Lake Tahoe et y accompagne les chanteurs de passage. Remarqué par le chef d’orchestre Nelson Riddle, il participe au show de la chanteuse Julie Andrews (1963) avant de regagner Los Angeles où il s’intègre aux formations de Don Ellis et de Gérald Wilson, retrouve Quincy Jones pour des musiques de films. Des musiques de films et de feuilletons de télévision (« Mannix »), pour Bill Conti ou Lalo Schiffrin, il en interprète suffisamment pour devenir le saxophoniste anonyme que tout le monde a entendu (le soliste du film « Gloria » de John Cassavetes, c’est lui). Jusqu’au coup d’éclat que constitue l’enregistrement en deux séances (15 octobre 1966 et 14 janvier 1967) de deux albums (« New Dance ! », « Permutations ») pour le petit label avant gardiste « Revelation ». En duo (avec le contrebassiste Chuck Domanico) et en trio (avec le contrebassiste Bobby West et le batteur Bill Goodwin)
Ortega libère toute la musique qui est en lui et, standards ou compositions originales, laisse entendre un chant libertaire d’une radicale beauté. S’ils ne lui apportent pas la gloire, ces enregistrements (c’est à leur écoute que j’ai rencontré sa musique) lui confèrent le statut, pas forcément rentable, de musicien de légende auprès des amateurs curieux. Il retourne donc aux séances de studio et aux musiques de films, plus lucratives, tourne au Japon avec Percy Faith puis Quincy Jones (1972), se produit avec Frank Zappa, enregistre à nouveau (« A Delanto », « Rain Dance ») mais sans la flamme des albums « Revelation ».
Lassé, il s’éloigne progressivement de Los Angeles et s’installe près de San Diego, à Encinitas, jouant dans la région avec sa femme et son groupe, et des formations locales.

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Maintenant que les bisons ont disparu, que tant d’hommes musiques ont rejoint, qui la terre, qui le ciel, voilà que s’avance après trente ans d’oubli, avec son visage chiffonné de vieille, ô très vieille squaw, Anthony Ortega.
Anthony Ortega,le plus bizarre des musiciens de jazz rejoint aujourd’hui l’ombre de son mythe qui avait couru bien plus vite que lui. Celui qui sera à tout jamais le grain sonore de « Gloria », de John Cassavetes, son frère de sang et d’émotions croisés, est là avec sa voix d’enfant.
Anthony revient, discret, effacé, lui qui en rôdeur de l’infini prenait un soin vital d’effacer toutes ses traces sept disques introuvables en cinquante années d’errance. Anthony est là à nouveau, trente ans après, de retour en France. D’une autre culture, mexicano-indienne, d’un autre temps, d’une autre terre, celle où le vent ne se donnait pas en simulacre de la vie, mais se souvenait de l’origine du monde.
Anthony est donc là, il n’a pas perdu l’origine, la très lointaine enfance. Le réentendre donne immédiatement une sensation de rosée primitive, la rencontre à nouveau pour la première fois du premier visage de l’almée, la naissance du jazz.
Arabesques, nuages, passent dans ses saxos (alto et ténor) et ses bois (clarinette, flûte….). Sa musique originale est immédiatement reconnaissable : braises et vent mêlés.

Certains, parmi les grands sages de la tribu du jazz, se souviennent qu’Ortega, musicien de Californie, creuset de liberté, naquit en 1928, croisa très tôt la route de son condisciple Éric Dolphy, et qu’après de longs passages dans l’orchestre de Lionel Hampton avec Clifford Brown, Art Farmer, Quincy Jones, il partit se perdre dans bien des pistes, où il fit même la contrebande de la musique commerciale.
Certains, à la veillée, se souviennent, et doctement, discutent pour la millième fois Ortega a-t-il vraiment existé ?

Pas plus que les moutons n’ont rêvé d’androïdes électriques, le monde du jazz ne se souvenait plus de ce drôle de chaman, bizarre, le plus bizarre d’entre tous. Ortega is alive, quelque part dans un coin perdu près de San Diego, et depuis 1992, on a signalé son passage parmi nous.

Une réédition de « New dance », une nouveauté chez Évidence, et voilà tous les feux de la plaine rallumés, Ortega est là, blanchi d’hiver, faisant monter sa musique comme une fumée.
Oui, Anthony Ortega existe, vous pourrez le rencontrer révélé par une rythmique française exemplaire Manuel Roche Man (piano), Didier Levallet (Contrebasse), Jacques Mathieu (batterie).
Anthony Ortega, serein et libre, surpris sans doute par sa propre beauté du son, laisse s’écouler le silence, pour n’être qu’un souffle.
« L’arbre en combattant grandit jusqu’à la mort », ainsi va Ortega, vers la vérité du temps suspendu.
À la lecture de ce texte Ortega composa la nuit même un morceau de reconnaissance, voletant dans sa tendresse et sa fragilité, « To Gil, Toulouse » qu‘il enregistra par la suite.  Gil Pressnitzer

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If you’re a student of liner notes from the 1950s, the name Anthony Ortega should ring a bell. Anthony played saxophone on a range of well-known recordings during jazz’s golden decade, including sessions led by Gigi Gryce, Art Farmer, Quincy Jones, Sonny Stitt, Dinah Washington, Billy Taylor, Nat Pierce, Maynard Ferguson and others. Anthony also led many fabulous recording sessions from the 1950s onward.
Interestingly, Anthony 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.
In Part 1 of my four-part conversation with Anthony Ortega, 83, the saxophonist, clarinetist and flutist talks about growing up on the West Coast and getting his start in music…

Anthony Ortega: In Los Angeles, in Watts, which is in South Central L.A. I went to grammar school, junior high and high school there. My father was a laborer who worked in a chicken market and did odd jobs. His father had been born in La Paz, Mexico, which is near the tip of the long, thin peninsula on Mexico’s western side. My grandfather was a general in Mexico.

AO: My mother was born in El Paso, Texas, but her family traces back to Mexico as well. I have an older brother and sister.

JW: Did you enjoy growing up in Los Angeles in the late ‘30s and ‘40s?
AO: I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was a great time. The city was more rural then. Nearby Orange County was full of orchards and avocado farms, and there were plenty of rabbits running around.

AO: Yes. I started by listening to Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman’s big bands. I didn’t go to concerts. They were too expensive. Most of the music I heard was on the radio. Later on I started buying 78-rpms.

AO: Ray Vasquez, my cousin. He was a good singer and trombonist. We’d always listen to records at his house. He liked Duke Ellington, but I didn’t care much for him. The sound of his orchestra was old fashioned to me. It didn’t grab me the way Count Basie’s and Glenn Miller’s bands did. Both were well blended and put together in a modern way.

AO: A lot of discs by tenor saxophonists like Lester Young and Ben Webster. I liked them a lot, too. And Tex Beneke [pictured]. I dug his sunny personality and the way he sang. The way he played his solos was pretty good, too. Now, of course, he sounds a little heavy. But back then, you could really hear the craft. I was obsessed with the saxophone. Eventually my cousin said, “Tell your mom to get you one.” So I asked her. She bought me a used alto down at Lockie’s Music Exchange in L.A.

AO: Oh sure. My cousin came, too, with a friend of his—Maurice Simon, a sax player. Maurice was there to test out the instruments. Maurice tried out a couple of altos for me, since a tenor was out of my mother’s price range.

AO: Yes, she bought me a used Conn for $103. It was a good horn, and the salesman said it used to belong to one of Glenn Miller’s sax players. That’s all I needed to hear. I took really good care of that horn and began to practice with a passion.

AO: Not right away. Jordan High School had a solid music program, so I studied there instead of privately. The students were all mixed. There were Mexican, Japanese, black and white kids—and everyone got along. The school had a junior band for students just starting out and then there were different types of bands for more advanced players.

AO: I took lessons from Lloyd Reese, after my cousin recommended him to me. Reese was a superb trumpeter and saxophonist. He played in swing bands and in the Hollywood studios. He taught everyone coming up. My cousin said, “You’re practicing hard and doing a good job, but you need a teacher.” I took a streetcar to Reese’s home, which was on Maple Street. Lessons were $3 for an hour. I took lessons with him for five years. We worked through Paul de Ville’s Universal Method for the Saxophone book from 1908—a classic. Reese also taught me the chord changes to songs.

AO: Yes. I wanted to start jamming right away. But as I learned all those chord changes, improvising sort of kicked in automatically.

AO: A little, which made me lax. At one point in 1943, Reese started to notice that I wasn’t practicing as intensively as I had been. He said, “What happened to you this week, Anthony?” I said, “Well, I’ve been thinking about going out for the football team.” He said, “Do you want to be a football player or sax player?”

AO: I told him I wanted to think about it. But I knew immediately in my heart that the saxophone was more important to me than football. So I quit the team and devoted the time to practicing a lot more.

AO: Not the full rig, but I had a nice one when I was 16. It was sharkskin with big shoulders and pants draped down. Not extreme.

AO: In 1943 I was in a band called the Junior Hep Cats, a group of black and Mexican musicians. We once played a high school concert and instead of blowing a lot of notes, I just rode a couple during my solo. Everything thought that was so cool, going the opposite way. I became a star on campus.

AO: That came during the war, in 1944. Friends were jamming on some of Charlie Parker’s songs. We decided to form a little group called The Frantic Five. During the war, there was a USO in Watts. Sailors and soldiers went there to dance with the girls on Friday and Saturday nights. Our group got a job there playing for the dancers.


AO: They were mostly head charts. We made about $5 each for playing there. I was 16 years old and still in high school. Once in a while we played somewhere else. When were weren’t gigging, we practiced a lot and listened to 78s on a wind-up Victrola.

AO: You could copy a solo by slowing down the tempo with the crank. What you’d hear would be in a different key, of course. But you were able to figure out how the chord intervals ran and the thinking behind the solos. That helped a lot.

AO: Yes. I was selected to be part of the All City Junior High School Orchestra, which gave me exposure to classical music.

AO: No. After a year of studying, Reese told me that if my ambition was to play in an orchestra, I’d have to double on the clarinet. So I took up the clarinet with him. The clarinet came easy to me. My idols were Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, and I listened to them a lot. After the clarinet I took up the flute.

AO: By that time I was earning enough from gigs to put down payments on both. The clarinet was $110, and Reese sold me a flute for $100. I paid in installments.