Customer Reviews

Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music

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This music has had a huge effect on my life. Henceforth, three people this week have called me to comment on the passing of Juan Garcia Esquivel. Because of his death, I have become inspired to write a review of this quintessential lounge work. For me, this is a seminal lounge work, humorous, innovative, kitschy and happy as all hell. This is music reflective of a happy time, a hip time, and it is a joyous, infectious miracle. Certainly it is lounge music, not for everybody, but if anybody is going to turn you onto this stuff , it is the Late Great genius. I have been known to turn students onto Esquivel to the point that they bring this CD to their colleges................So buy this, and get back to a gentler time. And light a candle and say "pow" for our bespectacled pop master. I am sure, needing a break from George Harrison(though he was a genius too) and "My Sweet Lord", the angels now sing "Whatchamacallit" in heaven.
Thanks Esquivel. You made the worl a swinging place

This was my first Esquivel CD even though I have heard a lot of his stuff for a long time! It is a great collection to begin with a lot of fun, classic and kitschy tunes (and nothing too weird for you novices out there). Putting on this CD is guaranteed to get you dancing whether you're doing the dishes or getting ready to go out. We've also used it for clever background music for theater sketches. (and don't let the title discourage all you bachelorettes out there, it works for us too!)

There are two types of lounge music - the more laid back and dull orchestra kind (Jackie Gleason's work falls into that category) and the more surrealistic and wild space age stuff that holds up surprisingly well today as an entertaining listen (Esquivel falls into the latter category). Sorry for that run-on sentence, but its the best way I am able to describe the genre of lounge music. Esquivel's work is, along with Raymond Scott, space-age pop's true artistic statement. He had a sense of humor, which is apparent in his compositions. His music is truly out of this world - it sounds like nothing else in the lounge genre, or in any other genre all together. Most of all, despite the surrealism, this is probably the most accessible music in the space-age pop genre. Its great dancing music, and the only flaw is that it doesn't hold up as well on repeated listens. It certainly swings, and this is a must-have for any interested in the lounge genre.

I have always been a fan of the off-beat, the unusual, from unknown classical composers to "bad" music (which is in the eyes of the beholder), which also extends to popular music. I was delighted when the retro-swing movement came about, and that meant that many old recordings were going to be resurrected on CD and I said, "I better get these while they are still out there"! Well, I bought many of those CD's, and I do not regret it! From a classical standpoint, Esqivel really reminds me of composers like Stockhausen and Ligeti! He really distorts pop music, slowing down tempos, using instruments that are unusual (such as the Jaw Harp and many others that he invented himself). His most famous trademark is his back-up singers, who say "Zu-Zu-Zu-Zu" or only say one or two words of a lyric while the instrumentalists take over the others while you imagine them being sung. Esquivel also wrote many pieces by himself, of which "Latin-Esque" is one. The sound quality is extraordinary. This is a big factor: if you listen with headphones, you can hear more of the stereo "spread"-xylophone glissandos surround you instead of just coming out of the speakers. CD technology has a way of making the old sound even better, and you can tell these recordings were made with love. My only criticism of these compilation CDs is the fact that there is duplication of certain numbers which of course overlap between CD's. Great notes by the amazing Irwin Chusid, who should put out a book of all his program notes from his CD's. A winner all around!

Juan Garcia Esquivel is truly the Gerald McBoing-Boing of orchestration! This is an excellent sampler of tracks from several of his classic 'Sonorama' albums of the late 1950s and early-to-mid 1960s which feature his very unique arranging easy-but-not-easy listening style, showcasing odd instruments, weird scat vocals (like in the title above), strange jumps in stylistic ideas, bizarre stereo effects, and so on. Esquivel takes the standards and twists them into very weird and wacky audio playground equipment. For those looking for a nice background lounge sound, look elsewhere; this is for those who really like a challenge in listening...and a challenge with a lot of humor to it, to boot. An excellent beginning sampler; if you like what's here, then check out his "Other Worlds, Other Sounds" and "Infinity in Sound" series next.

While I appreciate the lyrical turn of the given title, this music doesn't suggest bachelorhood to me. In my head, this music conjures up my most covert anti-progressive domestic fantasies: I come home from work, weary from another day of saving babies. You greet me at the door in your apron. The house greets me with fragrances of a brisket that has been slow-cooking all day. The girls, pigtailed and dressed in pink, twirl around in excitement. The boy also twirls in, also dressed in pink, and I demoralize him verbally for it. I slide into my comfy chair as the dog rushes over, carrying in his mouth my special five-foot quad-chamber bong, a bag of ice, a fresh Sufentanil patch, a jug of vinyl ether and the herbal vaporizer. I am self-satisfied, uncircumcised, and I laze in the shadow of my colossal carbon-footprint mushroom-cloud as those first brassy bleats of "Sentimental Journey" take hold.

Sorry, that took a turn I didn't expect. The point is, this is a good collection. I like Esquivel's sound. It works as kitschy background music for those lounging moments, but it has an intelligence and inventiveness to it that is worth listening to for more than just the nostalgic. I am a sucker for those "pow," "zu-zu" choral vocals, xylophones, glissandi, and I love when he bounces the sounds from speaker to speaker. It's a nice early-stereo technique that I had been taught Pink Floyd invented. Now I'm wondering what else I learned from Guzik that isn't true. But that's my problem.

Another CD I recommend, with a similar vibe, but a compilation of various artists, is "Music for a Bachelor's Den." It's not quite as good, a touch too gentle and plush for my taste, but still worth a listen. That one also has a track by the legendary Dick Hyman. I'm a big fan of Dick Hyman, just as I am a fan of anyone whose name can stand alone as an imperative sentence. If only my stupid parents had given me a verb and an object for a name. But, no, they had to saddle me with a couple proper nouns.

a really great disc, hands down. Such an incredible sound, and to think that this stuff was made long long ago, before all of this digital sampling stuff. really cool material. After I got this cd, i found it funny how esquivel pops up every now and then in movies, like four rooms or the big lebowski. really a very good mood setting device.

I am an Esquivel fan. I must say that this booklet is well written and illustrated with some great photos. Bar-None really did a fine job there. The music is fine for the beginner just getting started in their Esquivel collection, giving some of his best performances on this CD. Nice package for the price!

THIS IS A GREAT INTRODUCTION TO ESQUIVEL BECAUSE THE TUNES ARE FAMILIAR BUT HIS STYLE IS SO UNIQUE. THIS IS A HAPPY HAPPY CD! A MUST FOR YOUR LOUNGE COLLECTION! IF YOU CAN FIND IT, HIS X-MAS CD IS ONE OF THE BEST AROUND!

This sound that is on this Cd,has such nostalgic value to those over 40 yrs old.For some of us,there was a sound in the 50',60',70's,that was what used to be referred to as "elavator music".But for me personally,epecially since I am a musician;I find this style of music quite enjoyable.It makes me think of days gone by,and sceneries in my mind that may have never existed in the real world,but in the mind they bring comfort when I hear this type of music.Maybe it's a place,that we all wish existed.Here's a perfect example:On the tv show from the 60's,I Dream of Jeannie,the show was based on NASA,down at Kennedy Space Center in Cocoa Beach,Fl.Of course it wasn't filmed there,but the neighborhood and city areas that are shown on the show,look like the ideal place to live.But in reality,Cocoa beach doesn't even come close to looking like that.I've been there several times,and it doesn't resemble the tv show's Cocoa beach at all.But due to this type of music,being in relation to that time period,it's easy to live out thoughts in your mind of how you wish things could be,when you hear this great nostalgic music from yesteryear.