World sales are mounting for the BMG-backed CD of Mexican easy-listening virtuoso Juan Garcia Esquivel. Born in 1918, still alive and now immortalised as the godfather/auteur of "space-age bachelor-pad music"), Esquivel composed such gems as the themes to TV's Charley's Angels and Magnum, PI. Now. state51 is pleased to offer the Esquivel Enquiry Service.
Co-ordinating the service will be UK artist Chris Long, who first heard Esquivel via the man's original re-discoverer: the LA "sound artist" Byron Werner. (Werner is famed for both aural collages and cut-ups, wherein conversations, shouts and Last Poets meet up with themselves over and over -- to the tune of laughter tracks).
Ever since last October -- when America's Utne Reader published a piece called "Cocktail Nation" -- Esquivel has been pushed as part of an ersatz musical "movement". It's been taglined everything from "lounge" and "grunge on the rocks" (Entertainment Weekly, March 1994) to "The Sounds of Schmaltz" (Newsweek, August 1994).
But, not so. Esquivel, as even the insert to the BMG CD reveals, was hardly a slacker. Far from being Mexico's Don Ho, he worked his ass off from the age of 10 teaching himself how to arrange. Although, recently, his life's work has been well-documented, both in the CD booklet and in the ReSearch book "Incredibly Strange Music, Volume II" (where he is interviewed), this is merely his rediscovery by trendies. Says Chris Long ("the world's No 1 Esquivel fan");
His work has always been there in San Francisco's dimestore bins -- and in LA's used stiletto shops and swapmeets.
English band Stereolab paid Esquivel homage when they titled one of their records Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music. Lately, they contacted the composer at home in Mexico, asking him if he might re-mix a new effort. Esquivel, whose health is frail, declined but remains flattered.
See what other people have asked and the answers they received via the Esquivel Enquiry of the Moment
So, separate El Hombre from Tony Bennett, Martin Denny and Combustible Edison. If you need the facts to do so, now you know where to go. We make it ees-y.
Check out what's new, or for a full run-down hit the Hub