Juan García Esquivel, better known as Esquivel, is a Mexican composer, pianist and arranger born in Tampicon on January 20, 1918. Nicknamed the "king of space age pop", he is considered a pioneer of orchestral hi-fi, experimental stereo and lounge/easy listening music. He began his career in the 1940s at Mexican radio station XEW, where he conducted his own orchestra and composed for radio and television. He made a name for himself with his sophisticated arrangements combining brilliant brass, wordless vocals, exotic percussion and avant-garde use of stereophonic recording techniques. Moving to the USA in the 1950s, Esquivel signed with RCA Victor and released several cult space-age albums, including Other Worlds Other Sounds (1958), Exploring New Sounds in Hi-Fi (1959), Infinity in Sound (1960) and Infinity in Sound, Volume 2 (1961), More of Other Worlds, Other Sounds (1962) and Latin-Esque (1962). His innovative style is characterized by the use of stereo ping-pong effects, harp glissandos, sung onomatopoeia ("zu-zu-pow!") and orchestration full of surprises. He also collaborated with American TV shows such as The Ernie Kovacs Show, and later composed for Disneyland and various audiovisual projects. In the 1990s, he was rediscovered by fans of retro-lounge and exotica. Several compilations were released, including Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music (1994), popularized by fans of kitsch and experimental music. Weakened by health problems and blind at the end of his life, Esquivel died in Jiutepec (Mexico) on January 3, 2002, aged 82.
