Mexican Composer Esquivel Dies
sent in by Mike Medina
taken from The Associated Press

Juan Garcia Esquivel, a composer and arranger known for his eccentric, idiosyncratic music and lavish jet-set lifestyle, has died at the age of 83.

Esquivel died at his home in the central Mexican state of Morelos, on Jan. 3.

A native of the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, Esquivel first made a name for himself in the 1930s as the bandleader for a Mexico City radio station orchestra.

In 1957, RCA Victor Records brought the self-taught prodigy to the United States, where he worked mostly in New York, Hollywood and Las Vegas, according to an Internet biography by Irwin Chusid, who wrote the liner-notes from Esquivel's "Cabaret Manana" CD.

"For many, the words 'big band' conjure up images of Glenn Miller serenading a dance hall with honeysweet renditions," Chusid wrote. "Esquivel scored his sets for the ballrooms of Venus. Scattered amid the piano and trombone were whip-smart slide guitar, dense echo and post-bebop rhythmic ricochet, a dose of dissonance, unearthly percussion, and weird juxtapositions of mood and volume."

An obituary appearing on www.spaceagepop.com called Esquivel "the king of space-age pop" and noted that while many of his recordings start in a traditional big band style, "his arrangements take every element to its limit."

Esquivel's CDs "Music From a Sparkling Planet," "Cabaret Manana," and "See It in Sound" _ all from the 1990s _ brought his music to the consciousness of vintage music-loving youth, television, modern-day lounges and onto the soundtracks of several films including "The Big Lebowski," "Four Rooms," and "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America."

Offstage, Esquivel savored the celebrity life, hobnobbing with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Ernie Kovacs, but his bouts of drinking and prescription drug abuse eventually cut short his success, Chusid said.

Esquivel was bedridden or confined to a wheelchair for the last years of his life due to a spinal injury and broken hip.

In May 2001, he married his sixth wife, a 25-year-old home health care aide, in a ceremony at his home.