Where to start with Les Baxter, Martin Denny etc
Strider79it
1,176 Posts
Please suggest some of the more-representative albums to start with.... 
Strider79it
1,176 Posts
Comments
In the late 60's he's made some more albums i really like: Bora Bora, Bugaloo in Brazil (UK only) & Que Mango. Of which my favourite would be, Bora Bora.
Exotica
Quiet Village
Latin Village
But may I also recommend Arthur Lyman:
Aloha Amigo
Arthur Lyman At The Crescendo
Ilikai
Really, all of them are good.
I will put ALL of my money on THE MAESTRO of space age bachelor pad muzack
Juan Garcia Esquivel
�Chicas! �Chicos!
El Sauve Sauve
Mucho Bombastico
Senor Fantastico
Esquivel es en la casa otravez . . .
Juan Esquivel is a musician with a very special sort of genius; unfortunately one who has had more influence than lasting fame. Working from the age of fifteen in a horribly Wonder Bread pear-puke industry, he managed to utterly subvert the much despised genre of Easy Listening music.
Using the same old chestnuts that other E.L. specialists did (Lawrence Welk, Guy Lombardo, Namby Pensions) he created a glittery, fluorescent, Las Vegas world of sound.
Esquivel especially benefited from the emergence of stereo in the early 50's - he went to extreme lengths to achieve perfect left/right separation. The crystalline clarity gives a 3D glasses element to his sound that's truly titillating.
The variety of Latin percussion he employed is endless: Timbales, Reca-Recas, tuned Bongos, Woodblocks, Vibra-slap, Ass Jaw Bones, Congas, Gourds, Bells, Jew's harp, Marimbas, Buzzimbas, Maracas, Castanets and Squecha-Squechas to name a few. Plus neo-Latin stuff like the Theremin (think sci-fi -- Hitchcock) harpsichord, baby xylophone, and endoline.
The tight, tight, braying brass section is brazen as a Tom Cat peeing in your ear. The eruptions of Big-Band swaggering machismo have as fat a sound as any striptease music.
And, of course, those wordless sirens of the all-chica, muy linda, chorus: how caressingly they murmur "zu zu zu." Actually Esquivel said he was much influenced by Yma Sumac's mystical wordless mysticism. Although the ladies occasionally intone a ringing "Boink!" "Pow!" or "Shame!"
Topping the overall sound are some virtuoso whistling and rippling, cascading piano riffs from the master himself. Ethereal bells, chimes, Theremin, and baby marimba pink-sugar-frost the tropical paradise. The sort of thing Ricky Ricardo might have composed on really good organic mescaline.
This music is the polar opposite of grunge; always crisp, sparkling, happy, witty, silly and supremely self-confident. No dank death wishes lurking around here.
Actually you've already heard his music on over two-hundred TV shows including Letterman and Bay Watch. From "A-Team" to "Uncle Buck" -- whenever some zippy Latin color is needed they patch in Esquivel. Why not cut him a lot more Slack? This is definitely "Space Age Bachelor Pad music." I can see Leslie Nielson in his purple monogrammed silk pajamas ...
Goblin Magazine: How are you doing?
Juan Esquivel: I'm in the middle of some therapy. I'm in the process of writing some new arrangements and therefore I'm planning on being up and around.
GM: So you're going to have a new album out soon?
JE: I'm planning on being able to go to the states and make a new recording. I will go to Los Angeles or New York and perform the arrangements with a live orchestra.
GM: How long has it been since you performed?
JE: Three years because of my accident. Before that I was absent from the states for about ten years.
GM: We're reviewing Yma Sumac in this issue, did you used to know her?
JE: I used to hear and love her music. I was always impressed with her singing but I never had the chance of meeting her personally because I was performing in Las Vegas. I was there for fourteen years.
GM: How did you like Moises Vivanca, her arranger?
JE: Oh yes. Of course he had to depend very much on Yma Sumac's ability to perform. Therefore he arranges the material especially for her capacity. GM: You seemed to invent the saying, "Zu Zu Zu" for the singers. Was that happening at the time or was it completely your idea?
JE: That was my own idea and I have some new surprises for my next arrangements.
GM: Did you do your own whistling on the records?
JE: No, it was Marci Marcaleno, a musician from Los Angeles. God did not make me that way so I never even attempted to whistle or sing on the records. I am a lousy singer, I don't have any talent there at all.
GM: You seemed to be in the vanguard by having multi-culturalism, and girls of different races singing back-up for you. Did you see yourself as a pioneer in trying to encourage internationalism?
JE: Yes, I think so. I used very much the vocals. With the synthesizer you can produce so many sounds but they lack the human quality. You can get more direct with the real voices. I have just finished an arrangement. I hope people won't call me irrelevant because it is based on Mendelssohn's "Wedding March." The next number after that is going to be called Guacamole, which is just for fun.
GM: Do you think there was a problem with your promotion? Because your brilliant recordings never made it to the charts.
JE: I was recording for seven years but I lost interest because I didn't see ... There was a promotion is RCA with Latin-Esque music. RCA gave away 60,000 copies of a Latin-Esque compilation record to whoever bought a new RCA stereo. It was a big promotion. Either I was too ahead of my time or perhaps the public simply wasn't ready for my type of music. It was a lack of both parts, it took almost 35 years to have my music recognized with whatever is happening now.
GM: Your music has been used in the soundtracks of over two hundred TV shows. Many people who don't know you have heard your music. What is it like to be part of the collective unconsciousness?
JE: I'm very happy, especially because the youth is taking very much interest in my music. I have several new friends. A couple from Chicago, aged twenty and seventeen called me and told me, "Juan, we want you to know that we like very much your music. We don't exactly like it, we love it."
GM: Do you like any current contemporary popular music you've heard on the radio?
JE: That's a particular point because I like to listen to all the different arrangers and orchestras. I can take up to an hour and half of rock music and then I have to switch to Rachmaninoff, or Shostakovich, or Henry Mancini, or Barbara Streisand.
GM: Did you hear the music in your head before you wrote it down or did you experiment with the musicians to get the kinds of sound you got?
JE: It was part and part. Some of the ideas I have between writing the arrangements. For this new recording I'm going to write, before I perform I have plenty of time to think. Because of this accident I have to stay in bed and my mind has plenty of ideas. But then I broke my wrist and I haven't been able to play the piano. In the place I am, which is very nice and I'm very happy here, I don't have any one who can help play the piano for me. This is the home that my brother has; it is between Acapulco and Mexico City. Very nice and isolated and I have been visited by many nice people from Switzerland and London. I am so happy because the world comes to me with no effort on my part.
GM: I think the world's finally caught up to you and realized what you are doing is so much more colorful and interesting than everybody else.
JE: You're so right. In the years I presented my music I was very criticized. No one like my music. It's funny because I have met people from the past and I asked them, 'How come you like what you couldn't stand before?' And they say, 'well we just changed our minds.' There is a newspaper man in Mexico who was kind of my enemy for different reasons. Logically, you have some people that like you and some that don't like you. He wrote in his article: Esquivel is going to the states. I will eat this piece of paper if we will not have him back in three months. He ate that paper.
GM: Thank you very much for your interview.
JE: It's my pleasure, and I am certainly grateful to you for calling me. Just wait until you hear my next recording.
my boy has a double somewhere if you got dough
yeah I know this..... it's great !
This is basically the same lp as the KPM, no?
Les' "Ritual of the Savage" is great. As is Martin Denny's "Hypnotique".