“1968 Esquivel!!” by Esquivel - album review

features in: Album Chart of 1968Album Chart of the Decade: 1960s

TJR says

After 12 years, “1968 Esquivel!!” is last in line of his original RCA albums. Groovy bachelors living in space-age London pads would need to pay the import duty on this one – it was either that or pick a copy up whilst enjoying holiday cocktails in Cancun. All tunes were new to the maestro’s LP catalogue thus far, bar “Speak Low”, which gets a reworking from its appearance on 1958’s “Other Worlds” LP. “1968 Esquivel!!” is what I imagine a typical Esquivel LP to be – it has eccentric orchestration with touches galore, basking in the stereophonic, hi-fidelity revolution. Kettle drums and steel guitars get tightened and slackened for added effect. The slinky orchestra-pop set is peppered with latin and jazz grooves, is laced with humour, has occasional wolf whistles, lots of wordless vocals using the timeless “zu-zu-zu-zu” lyric, exclamations of “Wowww”, “Groo-veee” and random phrases like “Baby, you really blow my mind”. Kitsch charm with sonic invention, that’s the Esquivel sound. He makes me happy. :-) See?

The Jukebox Rebel
03–May–2012

Tracklist
A1 [01:55] 5.3.png Esquivel - Todavía (Armando Manzanero) Orchestra Dance
A2 [03:41] 5.7.png Esquivel - Speak Low (Ogden Nash, Kurt Weill) Jazz
A3 [02:35] 6.4.png Esquivel - Guantanamera (Joseíto Fernández) Latin
A4 [03:33] 7.6.png Esquivel - Lamento Borincano (Rafael Hernández Marín) Orchestra Dance
A5 [03:18] 6.7.png Esquivel - My Melancholy Baby (Ernie Burnett, George A. Norton) Jazz
A6 [01:57] 7.3.png Esquivel - Yeyo (Juan Garcia Esquivel) Latin
B1 [02:28] 7.7.png Esquivel - Mini Skirt (Juan Garcia Esquivel) Film Score / Incidental
B2 [02:27] 6.4.png Esquivel - Esta Tarde Vi Llover (Armando Manzanero) Film Score / Incidental
B3 [02:15] 8.0.png Esquivel - El Cable (Mario Carniello) Latin
B4 [02:08] 5.0.png Esquivel - Walking Happy (Jimmy Van Heusen) Orchestra Dance
B5 [02:30] 7.2.png Esquivel - Guanacoa (Juan Garcia Esquivel) Latin
B6 [02:16] 6.3.png Esquivel - Tengo (Armando Manzanero) Orchestra Dance

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