Hello,
Today's artist was a Mexican band leader, pianist, and composer for television and films. He is recognized today as one of the foremost exponents of a sophisticated style of largely instrumental music that combines elements of lounge music and jazz with Latin flavors. He is sometimes called "The King of Space Age Pop" and "The Busby Berkeley of Cocktail Music." He is considered one of the foremost exponents of a style of late 1950s-early 1960s quirky instrumental pop that became known (in retrospect) as "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music". .....N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Juan García Esquivel was born January 20, 1918 in Tampico, Tamaulipas, and his family moved to Mexico City in 1928 where he became a self-taught musician from an early age. In interviews, Esquivel's family members have stated that the young boy started playing piano when he was around 6 years old, to the amazement of older musicians who would gather around him in disbelief and to his own delight exhibiting his musical gifts. They have also stated that Esquivel continued to eschew formal musical training as he grew older, preferring to learn from books and by listening to and playing music instead.
Esquivel is considered the king of a style of late 1950s-early 1960s quirky instrumental pop known today as lounge music. Esquivel's musical style was highly idiosyncratic, and although elements sound like his contemporaries, many stylistic traits distinguished his music and made it instantly recognizable, including exotic percussion, wordless vocals, virtuoso piano runs, and exaggerated dynamic shifts. He used many jazz-like elements; however, other than his piano solos, there is no improvisation, and the works are tightly, meticulously arranged by Esquivel himself, who considered himself a perfectionist as a composer, performer, and recording artist.
His orchestration tended toward the very lush, employing novel instrumental combinations, such as Chinese bells, mariachi bands, whistling, and numerous percussion instruments, blended with orchestra, mixed chorus, and his own heavily-ornamented piano style. The chorus was often called upon to sing only nonsense syllables, most famously "zu-zu" and "pow!" A survey of Esquivel's recordings reveals a fondness for glissando,[citation needed] sometimes on a half-valved trumpet, sometimes on a kettle drum, but most frequently on pitched percussion instruments and slide guitars.
Esquivel's use of stereo recording was legendary, occasionally featuring two bands recording simultaneously in separate studios, such as on his album Latin-Esque (1962). The song "Mucha Muchacha" makes particularly mind-bending use of the separation, with the chorus and brass rapidly alternating stereo sides.
He arranged many traditional Mexican songs like "Bésame Mucho", "La Bamba", "El Manisero" (Cuban/Mexican) and "La Bikina"; covered Brazilian songs like "Aquarela do Brasil" (also known simply as "Brazil") by Ary Barroso, "Surfboard" and "Agua de Beber" by Tom Jobim, and composed spicy lounge-like novelties such as "Mini Skirt", "Yeyo", "Latin-Esque", "Mucha Muchacha" and "Whatchamacallit". He was commissioned to compose the music of a Mexican children's TV show Odisea Burbujas.
The pinnacle of Esquivel's extravagant approach to stereo can be heard on "Latin-esque," his entry in RCA's great Stereo Action series. For this album, he went to the extreme of placing his musicians in two separate studios, coordinating over an closed circuit with Stanley Wilson, who conducted the second group.
In 1963, Esquivel switched from studio work to live performance, creating a stage show featuring four svelte female singers, flashing lights, and choreographed routines and playing the Vegas-Tahoe circuit. His show was a favorite among Vegas insiders, and celebrities like Frank Sinatra regularly dropped in to listen. He liked to party in the fast lane, too. "I have had many loves in my life: music, cars, women and the piano, not necessarily in that order," he once told an interviewer.
He recorded his last U.S. release in 1967 and his last RCA album was released only in Latin American markets in 1968. By then, Vegas had become the focus of his activities.
Esquivel also wrote for TV during and after his studio period. He composed theme songs and soundtracks for several TV series, including "The Bob Cummings Show," but his greatest legacy has been a huge library of incidental music written mostly for Universal Studios (under Stanley Wilson's leadership) that's been sampled on over 100 different series, from "McHale's Navy" to "Kojak." Generations of television viewers have heard Esquivel's most enduring piece of library music--the three-second bombastic fanfare that accompanies the Universal Studios emblem at the end of its productions.
He led the live band for 12 years, but by the end, his audience had begun to dwindle, and his indulgence in drink and drugs led to the end of his contract. His belongings, including many of his compositions, were hauled off when he fell in arrears on his rent. In 1979, he returned to Mexio and composed for a children's series called "Burbujas." An album of songs and instrumentals from the series sold more than a million copies.
Beginning with his interview in Incredibly Strange Music, Vol. 1 in 1993, Esquivel enjoyed a tremendous revival in the last decade of his life. Indeed, it could be argued that he was more famous after he was "rediscovered" than when he was at the height of his creativity. Several compilations of Esquivel's music were issued starting with Space Age Bachelor Pad Music in 1994. The apparent success of these releases led to reissues of several of Esquivel's albums. The first reissues were compiled by Irwin Chusid, who also produced the first CD reissues of Raymond Scott and The Langley Schools
The last recording on which Esquivel worked was Merry Xmas from the Space-Age Bachelor Pad in 1996, for which he did a voiceover on a track by the band Combustible Edison. This album also included several obscure tracks from his past sessions. The last CD released during his lifetime, See It In Sound, was actually recorded in 1960, but was not released at the time because the record company believed it would not be commercially successful. When released in 1998, it exhibited very unusual and introspective stylings absent from his other works, including a version of "Brazil", played as a musical soundscape of a man bar-hopping where the band plays different renditions of "Brazil" at each bar.
Confined to a wheelchair in the last years of his life and weakened by heavy hardcore partying during his time in Hollywood, Esquivel was still strong enough to marry what he claimed was his sixth wife in May, 2001. He died from the effects of a stroke on 3 January 2002. It's fitting that he lived to see the new century in, since his music was often well ahead of its time
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Other Worlds Other Sounds may be the best known Esquivel album because of its sensational jacket art portraying a red-caped woman prancing across a green planetary landscape. Its real significance is as the moment where Esquivel takes control of his production and develops his signature sound. The chorus (the Randy Van Horne Singers) begins the "zu zu zu" nonsense beloved by Esquivel fans, and the playfulness with stereophonic separation begins here. But the material is not his best. "Ballerina" and "Night and Day" are cheesy, while most of the album seem like slow song outtakes from To Love Again. It is a different mood, one that never really hits its stride until the closing track: the astounding arrangement of "It Had to Be You." This is the promise of the future.
Esquivel - Other Worlds Other Sounds (flac 215mb)
01 Granada 4:10
02 Begin The Beguine 3:12
03 Night And Day 2:40
04 Poinciana 3:05
05 Playfully 2:57
06 Adios 3:08
07 That Old Black Magic 2:36
08 Nature Boy 2:42
09 Magic Is The Moonlight 2:37
10 Speak Low 2:42
11 Ballerina 3:04
12 It Had To Be You 3:10
Esquivel - Other Worlds Other Sounds (ogg 96mb)
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Exploring New Sounds in Stereo is the first of the typical Esquivel albums from which the CD compilations draw heavily. There is a lot to recommend it. "Whatchamacallit" is probably his second best-loved tune (released also as a single backed with the non-LP track, "I Feel Merely Marvelous"). The track features the ondioline, an electronic-organ-like instrument often associated with the theremin. And on Exploring New Sounds in Stereo, there is indeed theremin in Esquivel's spacy treatment of "Spellbound" (from the movie of the same name). Other highlights include the exotic "Bella Mora," the cheesy "My Number One Love," and "The 3rd Man Theme." The album also has slightly different arrangements than the monaural Exploring New Sounds in Hi-Fi.
Esquivel - Exploring New Sounds In Hi-Fi ( flac 152mb)
01 My Blue Heaven 2:53
02 Bella Mora 2:25
03 Boulevard Of Broken Dreams 2:55
04 Lazy Bones 2:42
05 Spellbound 3:26
06 All Of Me 2:18
07 Watchamacallit 2:25
08 La Ronde 2:27
09 My Number One Love 2:53
10 The 3rd Man Theme 2:24
(ogg mb)
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Strings Aflame is one of the easier Esquivel records to find, no doubt because many people were turned off by the material. As with Four Corners of the World, Esquivel seems to be proving his chops (this time with arrangements of popular string pieces), rather than doing what he does best or what his fans want most. Nevertheless, it is a fine album, well worth having in stereo. "Turkish March," "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers," "Gypsy Lament," "Guadalajara," and "Misirlou" all receive semi-exotic, unusual treatments. About four or so tunes feature the chorus's patented "zu zu zu" wordless vocal.
Esquivel - Strings Aflame (flac 215mb)
01 Guadalajara 2:36
02 Scheherazade 3:50
03 Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers 2:29
04 Andalusian Sky 2:41
05 Misirlou 3:08
06 Sun Valley Ski Run 2:14
07 Malagueña 3:12
08 Fantasy 3:13
09 Foolin' Around 2:45
10 Gypsy Lament 3:35
11 I Love Paris 3:17
12 Turkish March 3:05
Esquivel - Strings Aflame (ogg 104mb)
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Traditionally the most sought after and highest valued Esquivel record, More of Other Sounds Other Worlds should be considered in context. First, it is not a sequel to the RCA record of three years earlier. The title only reflects Stanley Wilson's desire to record Esquivel since having heard the earlier LP. Second, the label switch is significant. Reprise, a division of Warner Bros., started out giving old masters a fresh shot (hence the name). While the dual 35mm film recording process is played up, it is more important that new people are involved after hi-fi and stereo have become old hat. (Another great, similar "Reprise" from this period is Les Baxter's return to exotica in The Primitive and the Passionate.) The album begins with "The Breeze and I (Andalucia)," a brassy bullfighting number. "Street Scene" and "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)" belong to the bluesy urban crime jazz idiom. The rest of the album is typical of the style of Esquivel's later U.S. RCA work. While not his quirkiest or most sensational, it is among his best and most interesting.
Esquivel - More of Other Worlds Other Sounds (flac 187mb)
01 The Breeze And I (Andalucia) 2:38
02 Chant To The Night 2:35
03 Canadian Sunset 3:21
04 Street Scene 3:25
05 I Get A Kick Out Of You 2:38
06 Primavera 2:37
07 Street Of Dreams 2:13
08 La Mantilla 2:11
09 One For My Baby (And One More For The Road) 3:52
10 Dancing In The Dark 1:59
11 Snowfall 3:42
12 Travellin' 2:45
(ogg mb)
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The relative popularity of Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music led to a handful of additional reissues (even including a Christmas themed album. Cherry-picked from albums released by RCA between 1958 and 1967 and produced by longtime WFMU DJ and Songs in the Key of Z author Irwin Chusid (he also penned the disc’s informative notes), Space-Age’s 14 tracks stand tall not only through the bluntly oddball yet brilliantly controlled and grandly conceived nature of Esquivel’s creation, but also due to the shrewd, expert guidance of selection and sequencing.
It all opens with a truly zonked rendering of Les Brown’s big-band standard “Sentimental Journey” replete with low-register horn grumbling, dapper whistling, truly bent Hawaiian steel guitar, overblown explosions of brass, slinky and kooky vocalizing, abrupt yet non-dissonant clanks, and a complete abandonment of the standards of highbrow taste. Yes, this stuff is kitsch, but it’s built with such obvious care and delivered so deliriously that it overpowers any temptation to dismiss the music as shallow or trite.
And his original compositions display a warmly warped sensibility that matches his gift for twisted arranging, the two coming together exquisitely on “Whatchamacallit,” the cut strategically placed right at the end of side one. That tune made appearances on at least a dozen of my homemade mix-tapes (remember those?) from between ’94 and ’97, and if forced to explain the appeal of the whole exotica phenomenon through non-verbal or unwritten means it might just be the one song I’d pick for the exercise; everything I’d detail in words is there in spades.
It’s true that Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music is solidly on the “single man with a Hi-Fi” end of the exotica spectrum, with the “animal sounds and Tiki-torch ambiance” being more the specialty of one Martin Denny. And I’ll add that Bar/None didn’t screw the pooch by skimping on vinyl pressings of either this record or its follow-up, Music From a Sparkling Planet. Stereo separation is a big part of the equation with Esquivel’s work, as is a tweaked take on the lush large-band pop arranging (Nelson Riddle, Billy May, Neal Hefti) that was so commercially successful in the 1950s. So it’ll sound magnificent coming from the speakers of your deluxe system whilst hopefully snuggling with a special someone on that snazzy bearskin rug
Esquivel! - Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music (flac 224mb)
01 Ella Fue - She Was The One 3:41
02 En Orbita 4:54
03 Awake 5:22
04 Peanuts - The Peanut Vendor 4:55
05 Jubileo 6:28
06 Verao Vermelho 6:20
07 Steady - Fijo 2:47
08 Juan Pachanga 6:10
Esquivel! - Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music (ogg 95 mb)
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Today's artist was a Mexican band leader, pianist, and composer for television and films. He is recognized today as one of the foremost exponents of a sophisticated style of largely instrumental music that combines elements of lounge music and jazz with Latin flavors. He is sometimes called "The King of Space Age Pop" and "The Busby Berkeley of Cocktail Music." He is considered one of the foremost exponents of a style of late 1950s-early 1960s quirky instrumental pop that became known (in retrospect) as "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music". .....N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Juan García Esquivel was born January 20, 1918 in Tampico, Tamaulipas, and his family moved to Mexico City in 1928 where he became a self-taught musician from an early age. In interviews, Esquivel's family members have stated that the young boy started playing piano when he was around 6 years old, to the amazement of older musicians who would gather around him in disbelief and to his own delight exhibiting his musical gifts. They have also stated that Esquivel continued to eschew formal musical training as he grew older, preferring to learn from books and by listening to and playing music instead.
Esquivel is considered the king of a style of late 1950s-early 1960s quirky instrumental pop known today as lounge music. Esquivel's musical style was highly idiosyncratic, and although elements sound like his contemporaries, many stylistic traits distinguished his music and made it instantly recognizable, including exotic percussion, wordless vocals, virtuoso piano runs, and exaggerated dynamic shifts. He used many jazz-like elements; however, other than his piano solos, there is no improvisation, and the works are tightly, meticulously arranged by Esquivel himself, who considered himself a perfectionist as a composer, performer, and recording artist.
His orchestration tended toward the very lush, employing novel instrumental combinations, such as Chinese bells, mariachi bands, whistling, and numerous percussion instruments, blended with orchestra, mixed chorus, and his own heavily-ornamented piano style. The chorus was often called upon to sing only nonsense syllables, most famously "zu-zu" and "pow!" A survey of Esquivel's recordings reveals a fondness for glissando,[citation needed] sometimes on a half-valved trumpet, sometimes on a kettle drum, but most frequently on pitched percussion instruments and slide guitars.
Esquivel's use of stereo recording was legendary, occasionally featuring two bands recording simultaneously in separate studios, such as on his album Latin-Esque (1962). The song "Mucha Muchacha" makes particularly mind-bending use of the separation, with the chorus and brass rapidly alternating stereo sides.
He arranged many traditional Mexican songs like "Bésame Mucho", "La Bamba", "El Manisero" (Cuban/Mexican) and "La Bikina"; covered Brazilian songs like "Aquarela do Brasil" (also known simply as "Brazil") by Ary Barroso, "Surfboard" and "Agua de Beber" by Tom Jobim, and composed spicy lounge-like novelties such as "Mini Skirt", "Yeyo", "Latin-Esque", "Mucha Muchacha" and "Whatchamacallit". He was commissioned to compose the music of a Mexican children's TV show Odisea Burbujas.
The pinnacle of Esquivel's extravagant approach to stereo can be heard on "Latin-esque," his entry in RCA's great Stereo Action series. For this album, he went to the extreme of placing his musicians in two separate studios, coordinating over an closed circuit with Stanley Wilson, who conducted the second group.
In 1963, Esquivel switched from studio work to live performance, creating a stage show featuring four svelte female singers, flashing lights, and choreographed routines and playing the Vegas-Tahoe circuit. His show was a favorite among Vegas insiders, and celebrities like Frank Sinatra regularly dropped in to listen. He liked to party in the fast lane, too. "I have had many loves in my life: music, cars, women and the piano, not necessarily in that order," he once told an interviewer.
He recorded his last U.S. release in 1967 and his last RCA album was released only in Latin American markets in 1968. By then, Vegas had become the focus of his activities.
Esquivel also wrote for TV during and after his studio period. He composed theme songs and soundtracks for several TV series, including "The Bob Cummings Show," but his greatest legacy has been a huge library of incidental music written mostly for Universal Studios (under Stanley Wilson's leadership) that's been sampled on over 100 different series, from "McHale's Navy" to "Kojak." Generations of television viewers have heard Esquivel's most enduring piece of library music--the three-second bombastic fanfare that accompanies the Universal Studios emblem at the end of its productions.
He led the live band for 12 years, but by the end, his audience had begun to dwindle, and his indulgence in drink and drugs led to the end of his contract. His belongings, including many of his compositions, were hauled off when he fell in arrears on his rent. In 1979, he returned to Mexio and composed for a children's series called "Burbujas." An album of songs and instrumentals from the series sold more than a million copies.
Beginning with his interview in Incredibly Strange Music, Vol. 1 in 1993, Esquivel enjoyed a tremendous revival in the last decade of his life. Indeed, it could be argued that he was more famous after he was "rediscovered" than when he was at the height of his creativity. Several compilations of Esquivel's music were issued starting with Space Age Bachelor Pad Music in 1994. The apparent success of these releases led to reissues of several of Esquivel's albums. The first reissues were compiled by Irwin Chusid, who also produced the first CD reissues of Raymond Scott and The Langley Schools
The last recording on which Esquivel worked was Merry Xmas from the Space-Age Bachelor Pad in 1996, for which he did a voiceover on a track by the band Combustible Edison. This album also included several obscure tracks from his past sessions. The last CD released during his lifetime, See It In Sound, was actually recorded in 1960, but was not released at the time because the record company believed it would not be commercially successful. When released in 1998, it exhibited very unusual and introspective stylings absent from his other works, including a version of "Brazil", played as a musical soundscape of a man bar-hopping where the band plays different renditions of "Brazil" at each bar.
Confined to a wheelchair in the last years of his life and weakened by heavy hardcore partying during his time in Hollywood, Esquivel was still strong enough to marry what he claimed was his sixth wife in May, 2001. He died from the effects of a stroke on 3 January 2002. It's fitting that he lived to see the new century in, since his music was often well ahead of its time
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Other Worlds Other Sounds may be the best known Esquivel album because of its sensational jacket art portraying a red-caped woman prancing across a green planetary landscape. Its real significance is as the moment where Esquivel takes control of his production and develops his signature sound. The chorus (the Randy Van Horne Singers) begins the "zu zu zu" nonsense beloved by Esquivel fans, and the playfulness with stereophonic separation begins here. But the material is not his best. "Ballerina" and "Night and Day" are cheesy, while most of the album seem like slow song outtakes from To Love Again. It is a different mood, one that never really hits its stride until the closing track: the astounding arrangement of "It Had to Be You." This is the promise of the future.
Esquivel - Other Worlds Other Sounds (flac 215mb)
01 Granada 4:10
02 Begin The Beguine 3:12
03 Night And Day 2:40
04 Poinciana 3:05
05 Playfully 2:57
06 Adios 3:08
07 That Old Black Magic 2:36
08 Nature Boy 2:42
09 Magic Is The Moonlight 2:37
10 Speak Low 2:42
11 Ballerina 3:04
12 It Had To Be You 3:10
Esquivel - Other Worlds Other Sounds (ogg 96mb)
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Exploring New Sounds in Stereo is the first of the typical Esquivel albums from which the CD compilations draw heavily. There is a lot to recommend it. "Whatchamacallit" is probably his second best-loved tune (released also as a single backed with the non-LP track, "I Feel Merely Marvelous"). The track features the ondioline, an electronic-organ-like instrument often associated with the theremin. And on Exploring New Sounds in Stereo, there is indeed theremin in Esquivel's spacy treatment of "Spellbound" (from the movie of the same name). Other highlights include the exotic "Bella Mora," the cheesy "My Number One Love," and "The 3rd Man Theme." The album also has slightly different arrangements than the monaural Exploring New Sounds in Hi-Fi.
Esquivel - Exploring New Sounds In Hi-Fi ( flac 152mb)
01 My Blue Heaven 2:53
02 Bella Mora 2:25
03 Boulevard Of Broken Dreams 2:55
04 Lazy Bones 2:42
05 Spellbound 3:26
06 All Of Me 2:18
07 Watchamacallit 2:25
08 La Ronde 2:27
09 My Number One Love 2:53
10 The 3rd Man Theme 2:24
(ogg mb)
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Strings Aflame is one of the easier Esquivel records to find, no doubt because many people were turned off by the material. As with Four Corners of the World, Esquivel seems to be proving his chops (this time with arrangements of popular string pieces), rather than doing what he does best or what his fans want most. Nevertheless, it is a fine album, well worth having in stereo. "Turkish March," "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers," "Gypsy Lament," "Guadalajara," and "Misirlou" all receive semi-exotic, unusual treatments. About four or so tunes feature the chorus's patented "zu zu zu" wordless vocal.
Esquivel - Strings Aflame (flac 215mb)
01 Guadalajara 2:36
02 Scheherazade 3:50
03 Parade Of The Wooden Soldiers 2:29
04 Andalusian Sky 2:41
05 Misirlou 3:08
06 Sun Valley Ski Run 2:14
07 Malagueña 3:12
08 Fantasy 3:13
09 Foolin' Around 2:45
10 Gypsy Lament 3:35
11 I Love Paris 3:17
12 Turkish March 3:05
Esquivel - Strings Aflame (ogg 104mb)
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Traditionally the most sought after and highest valued Esquivel record, More of Other Sounds Other Worlds should be considered in context. First, it is not a sequel to the RCA record of three years earlier. The title only reflects Stanley Wilson's desire to record Esquivel since having heard the earlier LP. Second, the label switch is significant. Reprise, a division of Warner Bros., started out giving old masters a fresh shot (hence the name). While the dual 35mm film recording process is played up, it is more important that new people are involved after hi-fi and stereo have become old hat. (Another great, similar "Reprise" from this period is Les Baxter's return to exotica in The Primitive and the Passionate.) The album begins with "The Breeze and I (Andalucia)," a brassy bullfighting number. "Street Scene" and "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)" belong to the bluesy urban crime jazz idiom. The rest of the album is typical of the style of Esquivel's later U.S. RCA work. While not his quirkiest or most sensational, it is among his best and most interesting.
Esquivel - More of Other Worlds Other Sounds (flac 187mb)
01 The Breeze And I (Andalucia) 2:38
02 Chant To The Night 2:35
03 Canadian Sunset 3:21
04 Street Scene 3:25
05 I Get A Kick Out Of You 2:38
06 Primavera 2:37
07 Street Of Dreams 2:13
08 La Mantilla 2:11
09 One For My Baby (And One More For The Road) 3:52
10 Dancing In The Dark 1:59
11 Snowfall 3:42
12 Travellin' 2:45
(ogg mb)
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The relative popularity of Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music led to a handful of additional reissues (even including a Christmas themed album. Cherry-picked from albums released by RCA between 1958 and 1967 and produced by longtime WFMU DJ and Songs in the Key of Z author Irwin Chusid (he also penned the disc’s informative notes), Space-Age’s 14 tracks stand tall not only through the bluntly oddball yet brilliantly controlled and grandly conceived nature of Esquivel’s creation, but also due to the shrewd, expert guidance of selection and sequencing.
It all opens with a truly zonked rendering of Les Brown’s big-band standard “Sentimental Journey” replete with low-register horn grumbling, dapper whistling, truly bent Hawaiian steel guitar, overblown explosions of brass, slinky and kooky vocalizing, abrupt yet non-dissonant clanks, and a complete abandonment of the standards of highbrow taste. Yes, this stuff is kitsch, but it’s built with such obvious care and delivered so deliriously that it overpowers any temptation to dismiss the music as shallow or trite.
And his original compositions display a warmly warped sensibility that matches his gift for twisted arranging, the two coming together exquisitely on “Whatchamacallit,” the cut strategically placed right at the end of side one. That tune made appearances on at least a dozen of my homemade mix-tapes (remember those?) from between ’94 and ’97, and if forced to explain the appeal of the whole exotica phenomenon through non-verbal or unwritten means it might just be the one song I’d pick for the exercise; everything I’d detail in words is there in spades.
It’s true that Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music is solidly on the “single man with a Hi-Fi” end of the exotica spectrum, with the “animal sounds and Tiki-torch ambiance” being more the specialty of one Martin Denny. And I’ll add that Bar/None didn’t screw the pooch by skimping on vinyl pressings of either this record or its follow-up, Music From a Sparkling Planet. Stereo separation is a big part of the equation with Esquivel’s work, as is a tweaked take on the lush large-band pop arranging (Nelson Riddle, Billy May, Neal Hefti) that was so commercially successful in the 1950s. So it’ll sound magnificent coming from the speakers of your deluxe system whilst hopefully snuggling with a special someone on that snazzy bearskin rug
Esquivel! - Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music (flac 224mb)
01 Ella Fue - She Was The One 3:41
02 En Orbita 4:54
03 Awake 5:22
04 Peanuts - The Peanut Vendor 4:55
05 Jubileo 6:28
06 Verao Vermelho 6:20
07 Steady - Fijo 2:47
08 Juan Pachanga 6:10
Esquivel! - Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music (ogg 95 mb)
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1 comment:
Awesome - This guts great and I'm much appreciating the musical education.
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