Six months after I was born, Mexican band leader Juan García Esquivel, made this fascinating album. Esquivel was known as the King Of Lounge Music, a self confessed perfectionist he meticulously recorded original soundscapes with orchestra and an array of novelty instruments and voices that must have wowed the audiences of the day. He was also a composer and a virtuoso piano player but it was his intricate and bizarre arrangements that captured the publics imagination. Latin rhythms and Hawaiian guitars, whistles, voices saying “pow”, big brass, strings and frantic percussion. Oh to have seen him open for Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas – and what must Frank have thought of this nutty genius?

I managed to find some rare footage of Esquivel being interviewed in the sixties. “I actually don’t know what kind of music we play”. Of course he didn’t know what kind of music it was, because it didn’t have a name yet – he was inventing it! I hope you can appreciate this crazy music and if not you gotta love the album cover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Garc%C3%ADa_Esquivel