![]() ![]() Now, near the top of the revival agenda for 1996 is an unlikely genre, Space Age Bachelor Pad Music. I can imagine fidelity nuts going in big time for the genre – testing out their high end audio equipment or perhaps even dabbling in Heathkits – remember those? The Heathkit company was founded in 1912 by Edward Bayard Heath, starting off manufacturing oscilloscopes, moving into Ham radios finally moving into audiophile components to be assembled at home.FROM their rediscovery of "Moby Dick" in the 1920's to their fondness for endless reruns of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Americans have habitually mined the slag heap of discarded popular cultural artifacts. So I suspect there were many closet “Space Agers”. My sister and her friends were more prone to purchasing an Eddie Fisher or Pat Boone long play before they would choose a Nelson Riddle recording. Top: Martin Denny – Linda Lawson – Esquivel! – Felix Slatkin Bottom: Don Ralke – Arthur Lyman – Rene Touzet My folks counted among their friends a few couples from the generation following their own (“The Greatest Generation”) but as I recall these couples were more into some bop and swing type stuff. ![]() Webley Edwards’ “Hawaii Calls” series were a favorite, as were any number of Hawaiian collections – including Burl Ives performing “Pearly Shells”. Now my parents owned a modest collection of long plays, and many were influenced by their occasional journeys to the “Islands” – specifically the island of Maui. In fact, we rarely ever purchased a long play album! I remember going to basement parties sorting through stacks of 45’s that several of us would bring along, scratching them up as they were shuffled and then placed on the portable Hi-Fi.īut I never recall anyone bringing along a long play album to one of these parties. So who were the connoisseurs of Space Age Pop? Who exactly was purchasing these long play albums? One thing I know for sure, it certainly wasn’t anyone running with my crowd. Beyond arranging and performing many Latin flavored standards and applying touches ranging from Chinese bells to mariachi touches – vivid orchestration and even vocally delivered nonsense syllables – often accompanied by elaborate light shows.īut Esquivel!’s style was his – There was Mancini, Zentner, Denny, Gleason, Lyman, the Mona Keys, Julie London and on and on it goes. He would become known as the “King of Space Age Pop”. Julian Esquivel was born in January of 1918 in Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico and in his professional musical career was generally referred to as simply “Esquivel!” (complete with the exclamation mark!). Although there is no exact album, date, or year when the genre was born, producer Irwin Chus id identifies its heyday as “roughly 1954 to 1963-from the dawn of high-fidelity (hi-fi) to the arrival of the Beatles.”Īlong come the 1990’s – A CD is released titled “Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music” by Julian Garcia Esquivel, and a full blown “Space Age” revival is born. Space age pop was inspired by the spirit of those times, an optimism based on the strong post-war economy and technology boom, and excitement about humanity’s early forays into space. “Space age pop is a music genre associated with Mexican and American composers and songwriters in the space age of the 1950s and 1960s. ![]() “Space Age”, “Lounge”, “Exotica”, “Bachelor Pad”, “Cocktail” – it goes on and on. I don’t believe I have ever – ever purchased a long play album which could be classified as “Space Age Pop” – But before I could make that claim I thought I would look a little deeper into just what exactly defines that genre…. ![]()
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