Anthony Ortega

[Dave James]

Marc Myers at JazzWax is beginning a four part interview with Anthony Ortega today. Thought folks might be interested.

[brownie]

Thanks for the alert!

Ortega is an underrated musician who has plenty to say! I am sure Marc Meyers will prod him with good questions and corner him for interesting answers!

[clifford_thornton]

Cool - thanks for the tip. I love Anthony Ortega's music.

There's also this transcribed oral history, which is incredible.

[AllenLowe]

if you can, on Jazz wax, listen to the solo Ortega plays on that cut with Clifford Brown and Gigi Gryce - there's an absolute gem of an alto solo, a perfect thing, gorgeously melodic, I'd almost forgotten how great he is.

[AllenLowe]

funny, because someone posted that Ortega was NOT the soloist on that cut, that it was Gryce - which it was not. I just spoke on the phone with Ortega, who confirmed that it was he on that alto. Extremely nice man.

[imeanyou]

Ortega was one of my musical discoveries last year. So far I've only heard the stuff that was released by hatOLOGY. I'd love to hear more by him.

[johnlitweiler]

An excellent interview. Anthony Ortega is a distinctive, valuable, and courageous lyric artist. Besides the HatOlogy CDs there are some fine latter-day CDs of Ortega playing original songs by himself and Mona Ortega, with French little-big bands, on French labels - rather hard to find and wonderful to hear.

[mracz]

Yes, a wonderful player. I look forward to reading the interviews later this w/e. There's a marvellous Laura from the early 50s (recorded in Norway) which is very adventurous harmonically for that time. Jazz for Young Moderns is another good one, one side arranged by Nat Pierce and the other by the mysterious Bob Zieff (composer of most of the Chet/Twardzik quartet tracks). An original voice,distinctive and individual!

[AllenLowe]

Zieff was still around, as of 15 or so years ago - when I was in New Haven he used to call me periodically about various things. He was living in Pennsylvania. Don't know if he's still alive.

[colinmce]

Great interview-- I had no clue he was recorded so widely with Quincy Jones. A tad disappointed the interview didn't move into the sixties. Such great, interesting playing on the Revelation sides. I would have liked to hear about his processes and thinking, and maybe more on the scene of that era.

[mracz]

Zieff was still around, as of 15 or so years ago - when I was in New Haven he used to call me periodically about various things. He was living in Pennsylvania. Don't know if he's still alive.

The recent Twardzik biography had quite a lot of material from Zieff, Was he still musically active when you were in touch?

[Niko]

if you google a bit you'll find that zieff took his chamber jazz ensemble to a concert in a vienna only a few years ago (2008?), there's also a nice piece on zieff by chambers here:

http://langtech.dickinson.edu/Sirena/Issue2/Chambers.pdf

@colinmce: for much more info on ortega, including the sixties and seventies, see the much longer interview clifford linked to above

Edited January 16, 2012 by Niko

[AllenLowe]

Zieff first called me because he was trying to put together a band to play some of this work in New Haven - it never happened, unfortunately; then he called me 2 or three times afterwards to talk (mostly to complain about a critic who was a friend of mine) -

[king ubu]

if you google a bit you'll find that zieff took his chamber jazz ensemble to a concert in a vienna only a few years ago (2008?), there's also a nice piece on zieff by chambers here:

http://langtech.dickinson.edu/Sirena/Issue2/Chambers.pdf

That article was already mentioned in the thread about Jack Nimmitz' ABC session - Zieff was in touch with some folks back then, roughly same time frame (2007/08) (fine disc that one, btw!)

[mracz]

Thank you all. I will explore the suggested links in due course!

[Misterioso]

It's Anthony Ortega's 90th birthday today! May he play many more shows in good health at Mr Peapody's.

[Clunky]

8 hours ago, Misterioso said:

It's Anthony Ortega's 90th birthday today! May he play many more shows in good health at Mr Peapody's.

Happy Birthday. A fine player with a small number of releases but fine in quality 

[clifford_thornton]

Amazing.

[soulpope]

In my house always remembered for this one ....

[Stonewall15]

Fresh Sound Records released "Earth Dance" (FSR CD-325) featuring Anthony Ortega with a jazz orchestra. Recorded in New York in 1956 with arrangements by Nat Pierce and Bob Zieff. Three of the songs were written by Zieff. As far as I can tell these 12 tracks have not been previously issued.

[GA Russell]

On 6/7/2018 at 1:36 PM, soulpope said:

In my house always remembered for this one ....

I too think of New Dance! first.  When I was first getting into jazz, Revelation Records was heavily promoting this in Downbeat.

[Bluesnik]

On 13/01/2012 at 3:20 PM, imeanyou said:

Ortega was one of my musical discoveries last year. So far I've only heard the stuff that was released by hatOLOGY. I'd love to hear more by him.

I have that Ortega reissue from Freshsound, though I'm afraid it's OOP now.

[Adam]

According to recent correspondence with Steve Isoardi, Ortega still plays regularly in a place in California.  

Here's an article from 2016:

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/entertainment/music/sd-et-music-anthony-ortega-20161115-story.html

And the place:

Mr. Peabody's, Encinitas CA.  He's playing on Sundays.

https://www.peabodysrocks.com/live-music

https://www.reverbnation.com/show/22524717?utm_campaign=HTML5_ShowSchedule_Widget_Details&utm_content=show_details_link&utm_medium=widget

[jlhoots]

I just saw him live in Encinitas. Excellent. He signed my copy of Afternoon In Paris.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

re: earth dance- is this an unreleased pacific jazz session, ive think ive heard of this before