Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica - two albums

Artist:  Mr. Ho’s Orchestrotica 
Albums:  The Unforgettable Sounds of Esquivel / Third River Rangoon
Released: 2010 / 2011
Quality: mp3 CBR 192
Size: 42 / 86 MB

”The music of Mexican composer and arranger Juan Garcia Esquivel—often referred to with the exclamatory Esquivel!—has been described as Space Age pop, cocktail jazz and lounge music. Whatever it's called, Esquivel's music is happy music —an eccentric but optimistic take on standards and originals, incorporating the newest musical technologies of the '60s. On The Unforgettable Sounds of Esquivel Mr Ho's Orchestrotica presents eleven faithfully reproduced Esquivel arrangements, in just 30 minutes, and gives rise to one simple question. When will there be more?... Mr Ho's Orchestrotica breathes fresh life into these marvelously odd arrangements, with a clear understanding of just what their creator intended them to do. The Unforgettable Sounds of Esquivel is music for pleasure: a happy, bouncy puppy of an album that just wants to play and have fun.” ~ ~by Bruce Lindsay at allaboutjazz.com

“The "Mr. Ho" of Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica is vibraphonist Brian O'Neil, who has put together a vibraphone quartet, also featuring flute, percussion and bass, for Third River Rangoon. The music, dubbed "exotica," drifts back and forth across the less than distinct border between third stream chamber jazz and classical, with hints of world music influenced by a tropical island Tiki god thrown in for good measure. Mr. Ho's previous exotica release explored the artistry of Mexican composer Juan Garcia Esquivel on The Unforgettable Sounds of Esquivel, with a 23-piece ensemble, the music described as a "happy, bouncy puppy of an album." Third Stream Rangoon takes the sound into a spacey but much more introspective area, with a murky, dreamy atmosphere fashioned from the melding of the vibraphone's ringing sustain with the deep, glowingly rich tone of Geni Skendo's bass and c flutes. The inspirations for the music—eight of the eleven tunes written by Mr. Ho—are about as esoteric and off the wall as it gets: A twenty foot-tall stone statue sentry at the former Aku-Aku Restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts ("Lonesome Aku Fisherman's Wife"); Albanian drone singing ("Phoenix, Goodbye"); the Bulgarian kopanitsa ("Autumn Digging Dance"); and the "Allegretto" from Shostakovich's 10th Symphony ("Moai Thief")” .  ~by Dan MacLenaghan at allaboutjazz.com

WebSite
Facebook

---

Album:  The Unforgettable Sounds of Esquivel
Released: 2010
Quality: mp3 CBR 192
Size: 42 MB

Tracklist:
1. Andalucia 2:41
2. Night and Day 2:42
3. Take the A Train 2:18
4. The Boulevard of Broken Dreams 3:29
5. Music Makers 2:27 6. Frenesi 2:26
7. Sentimental Journey 2:38
8. Mini Skirt 2:29
9. Let's Dance 2:43
10. Dancing in the Dark 2:00
11. Street Scene 3:35

---

Album:  Third River Rangoon
Released: 2011
Quality: mp3 CBR 192
Size: 86 MB

Tracklist:
1. Third River Rangoon 4:36
2. Thor's Arrival 4:55
3. Maika 3:23
4. Colorado Waltz 4:22
5. Arab Dance 4:29
6. Phoenix, Goodbye 5:12
7. Terre Exotique 4:04
8. Autumn Digging Dance 3:12
9. Moai Thief 3:58
10. Lonesome Aku of Alewife 3:51
11. Lyman '59 2:02