2014 Animals

Each year, Martha Argerich and her friends gather for the summer festival in Lugano, Switzerland, to perform a variety of chamber and keyboard works that showcase musical talents across generations. Highlights of these performances have been released annually on box sets that are representative of these artists' brilliant virtuosity and fine musicianship. The set for 2013 includes performances of works by Beethoven, Respighi, Liszt, Shostakovich, Ravel, Debussy, Offenbach, and Saint-Saëns, presented with enthusiasm by Argerich and her friends Mischa Maisky, Renaud Capuçon, Gautier Capuçon, Francesco Piemontesi, Alissa Margulis, Jura Margulis, Gabriela Montero, Cristina Marton, and many others, some of whom have become frequent guests at the festival.

The John Lurie National Orchestra - The Invention of Animals (2014) {Amulet Records Digital Download 16-44.1}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (qobuz.com) -> 222 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 86 Mb | Cover | 5% repair rar
© 2014 Amulet Records | AMT 037
Jazz / Modern Creative / Modern Jazz / Score

This archival compilation is a much-needed addendum to John Lurie's recorded legacy. Since being struck with a chronic case of Lyme disease in 2000, the saxophonist and composer has focused more on painting than music. The John Lurie National Orchestra was an early-'90s trio with percussionists G. Calvin Weston and Billy Martin. This group recorded fairly little in the studio, issuing only one album, 1993's Men with Sticks. The title track from that recording is featured and showcases just how fluid and communicative they could be in virtually any circumstance. It's one of the true highlights here, with Lurie's hypnotic alto exploring the subtleties of a melodic idea atop a circular rhythm orgy by Weston and Martin.

Wave upon wave of praise has followed the release of each one of guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg's leader dates—small group affairs that are typically built with equal parts energy and taste; Wave Upon Wave, balancing fire with heart, stealth movement with direct engagement, and power with grace, is likely to garner some more.
The fleet-fingered Kreisberg focuses on originals here, shifting between the mellow ("Being Human") and the charged ("Until You Know"). And through it all, regardless of style and syntax, his molten-and-focused tone shines through. There's a liquid glow behind his every gesture, whether he's flowing atop drummer Colin Stranahan's spry movements in five ("From The Ashes"), taking a more reflective path, or charging into the fray ("Until You Know").

The Animals were a British band of the 1960s, formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade. The band moved to London upon finding fame in 1964.

Sven Väth is looking relaxed. The global House and Techno scene continues to define his life but he deals with it now at his own pace. To his mind, all that stuff is not only brimming with life but also directed by a higher order or even by the kind of “soul” familiar to us from older historical genres such as Jazz or Blues.