BORN: January 20, 1918, Tampico, Mexico

    In the mid-'90s, Juan Garcia Esquivel enjoyed one of the most
unexpected  resurgences  of  popularity  -- and hipness -- in the
annals of 20th-century pop. The composer and arranger skirted the
lines between lounge music, eccentric experimentalism, and stereo
sound  pioneer  in  the  late  '50s and early '60s on a series of
albums  aimed  at  the  easy-listening  market.  Both  cheesy and
goofily  unpredictable,  these  records were forgotten by all but
thrift-store habitues for decades. With the space age pop/exotica
revival  of  the  mid-'90s,  however, Esquivel was not just being
rediscovered,   but   was  being  championed  as  a  cutting-edge
innovator by certain segments of the hipper-than-thou alternative
crowd.  Esquivel  (in  the  manner  of Dion or Melanie, he billed
himself  with  a  single name) actually enjoyed a long and varied
career,  of  which  his  space  age  pop  recordings  were only a
portion.  Born  in  a small Mexican village, the pianist became a
popular performer on a Mexican radio station, and studied briefly
at  Julliard  in  New  York.  The radio (and later television and
film)  work  actually  gave him valuable experience in the art of
quickly   devising   varied   background   music  and  orchestral
arrangements,  which he'd put to good use when he began recording
for RCA in the late '50s.

    This  was  the era in which stereo albums were first starting
to  be  marketed.  Esquivel -- along with several other of "space
age  pop"'s  leading lights -- took advantage of this development
to  use  his  albums  as  laboratories  of  sorts  to explore the
spectrum  of recorded sound, as reflected in LP titles like Other
Worlds,  Other Sounds, and Four Corners of the World. He employed
then-exotic  instruments  such  as  the  theremin, the ondioline,
early Fender-Rhodes keyboards, Chinese bells, bass accordion, and
boo-bams (a 24-bongo kit tuned to F) to get what he wanted.

    What  kept Esquivel from serious critical appreciation at the
time  are,  perhaps,  the  same  factors  that  exert  a  strange
fascination upon listeners of the 1990s. In its form and content,
Esquivel's  material  was  lightweight  martini mixing fare, more
geared   toward   suburban   easy   listening   than  challenging
innovation. He threw in just enough sly, oddball quirks, however,
to  make  one wonder whether he was in fact deftly satirizing the
form,  or  at least using it as a forum to slip in some unbridled
zaniness.  Chipper whitebread background chorus singers will slip
into  strange  nonsense  syllables  like  "boink,  boink."  Weird
instrumental  flourishes  add  unpredictable  tension to bathetic
easy-listening   instrumentals,   sometimes  almost  jarring  the
listener from the state of bland relaxation for which the records
were purportedly designed. The strains of cha-cha-chas and mambos
(then in vogue among much of mainstream America) run through much
of  his  work,  though in a much more loungish vein than what you
would  find  in  sweaty Havana ballrooms. Tempos and arrangements
change   with   unnerving   frequency  and  charge  forward  with
unsettling  manic  energy,  though  never so often that the music
sounds more experimental than pop.

    So  when  post-moderns  tired of punk, grunge, and industrial
music,  and  needed  some  suitably  different (but still ironic)
music  to chill out to in their dank clubs and cafes, they turned
to forgotten artists such as Esquivel. The man himself had passed
his  heyday  as  a  recording  artist  after  the  early '60s. He
remained  active for years with his live act (Frank Sinatra was a
fan of Esquivel's Las Vegas sets) and television and film scores.
By  the  1990s,  he was confined to a wheelchair in his brother's
home  in  Mexico, the victim of numerous back injuries. He wasn't
so  ill  that  he  couldn't  be interviewed, however. His lengthy
profile  in the first volume of the Incredibly Strange Music book
kicked  off  the  Esquivel  revival in earnest. 1995 suddenly saw
Esquivel  reissues  flooding  the market (at least three appeared
that   year,   with   more  apparently  on  the  way).  Respected
alternative  figureheads  like  John  Zorn  and  R.E.M.  sang his
praises. Esquivel was no longer gathering mold in the attic -- he
was the epitome of hip.

    As is the case with other space age pop heroes such as Martin
Denny,  some  listeners  will be dumbfounded, or even angered, by
the  current  appeal  enjoyed by Esquivel. His work will never be
treated  with respect by the "serious" music community; his music
is  too  consciously  geared toward light entertainment for that.
And  just  as  one  wonders whether Esquivel was mixing irony and
entertainment in his recordings, one wonders whether some current
Esquivel  fans  are  championing  his cause out of a desire to be
more  jaded-than-thou.  Do  they  groove  to his sounds precisely
because  Esquivel's  records  sound  so ridiculously outdated, or
simply because they want to become hip by attaching themselves to
the  most  unfashionable  music  possible?  Easy  answers are not
forthcoming, but Esquivel isn't complaining. In fact, he's become
something  of  the  spokesperson emeritus for the whole space age
pop   craze,   conducting   regular   interviews   for   national
publications  from  his  Mexico  bed,  and  hoping  to eventually
recover  some  of  his  mobility. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music
Guide