Search - Juan Garcia Esquivel :: Mexico Days

Not Juan's best recording

Scott McVittie | Brownsville, Texas United States | 03/02/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"To my ears this is a piece-meal effort. The "announcing" between cuts is almost like they were added from the control room before "pressing" and the so-called live applause sounds more like ducks on the wing rather than actual hand-clapping. Besides, between too many "cuts" the so-called applause is identical so it must be "ash-can" add-on. I cannot believe this was a "live-recording" by any stretch of the imagination.



Given cds do not possess the fidelity of vinyl (I often compare "Strings Aflame" which I have in both formats) this cd is, again, to my ears, the poorest of many in not all.



I feel as if Mr. Esquivel had little to do with the actual arranging and conducting...sort of like Lawrence Welk/George Cates (in that case Cates does a far better job than Welk ever did).



Will I stop purchasing Esquivel releases? NO!



Oh, and if you haven't you need to look into installing an outboard device that puts the warmth into digital recording that computers, their sound cards and transistors obfuscate. "Tracertek" has affordable and excellent equipment that addresses this fidelity issue and I wouldn't be without my Behringer MDX-2200 Composer Pro multi-function 2-channel compressor/limiter/expander/Gate/Peak Limiter. You can go from Bob Seger's "Night Moves" to Andre Kostalanetz's "Root Beer Polka" without diving for the volume control knob before your speakers go up in flames and smoke."