Anthony Robert "Tony" Ortega (born June 7, 1928 in Los Angeles, California) is an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, and flautist.
Ortega was heavily influenced and introduced to musicians and started his career in Watts, Los Angeles by cousin and acclaimed Vocalist and Trombonist Ray Vasquez
Ortega began to play the saxophone at age 14 and studied the instrument under Lloyd Reese. He played in 1947 with Earle Spencer, but from 1948 to 1951 he served in the U.S. Army. He 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. 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. In 1958, he returned to Los Angeles, where he worked with Paul Bley, Claude Williamson, and the Lighthouse All Stars.
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.
He worked with Don Ellis and Gerald Wilson in 1965 and with Lalo Schifrin in 1968. 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. He is still active, playing locally every Sunday 5:30pm to 10:00pm at Mr. Peabody's in Encinitas, California. He is back on stage, now we are back open from the Covid19 pandemic.