Composer/band leader/pianist and lounge-music icon Juan Garcia Esquivel died Jan. 3 in Jiutepec, Mexico, following a stroke, Billboard Bulletin reports. He was 83. Esquivel, who used only his surname professionally, created an idiosyncratic, complexly arranged style of big-band instrumental music, later dubbed "space-age bachelor-pad music," which he recorded prolifically for RCA Victor in the '50s and '60s.
Esquivel stopped recording regularly in the late '60s, although he was frequent performer in Las Vegas cabarets. The artist was confined to a wheelchair by the early '90s, but he enjoyed a huge resurgence in 1994 when Bar/None Records issued "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music," a popular collection of his RCA sides.
Other compilations and reissues followed -- including three in 1997 alone and a 1999 compilation, "Wired Magazine Presents: Music Futurists," which found Esquivel tracks alongside music by Sonic Youth, Sun Ra, Brian Eno, and Devo. Esquivel's music was also widely used in '90s films and TV ads.
Esquivel stopped recording regularly in the late '60s, although he was frequent performer in Las Vegas cabarets. The artist was confined to a wheelchair by the early '90s, but he enjoyed a huge resurgence in 1994 when Bar/None Records issued "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music," a popular collection of his RCA sides.
Other compilations and reissues followed -- including three in 1997 alone and a 1999 compilation, "Wired Magazine Presents: Music Futurists," which found Esquivel tracks alongside music by Sonic Youth, Sun Ra, Brian Eno, and Devo. Esquivel's music was also widely used in '90s films and TV ads.
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