Excellent small group work from Sadao Watanabe – easily one of the best Japanese reed players of the past 50 years – still sounding great here on a recent acoustic session! Watanabe plays alto throughout – a definite preferred horn of late – and stretches out in these expressive solos in the company of Gerald Clayton on piano, Ben Williams on bass, and Jonathan Blake on drums – a combo who step out with lots of warm sympathy on a set of tracks that's all original material by Watanabe! Sadao's tunes have a feel that's quite poetic, yet still also swinging too – a balance carried out in a wonderfully subtle way on tunes that include "I Miss You When I Think Of You", "Gemmation", "Vamos Juntos", "Simpatico", and "Warm Days Ahead".

Hardly halfway through the year and 2014 has already seen some absolute turn arounds in the metal scene and Devil You Know happen to be one of them with their debut album. The Beauty Of Destruction, produced by Logan Mader, ex-Machine Head guitarist definitely has a distinct and intense sound,the band being a collaboration of some of the most talented names in metal featuring ex Killswitch Engage vocalist Howard Jones, Ryan Womabcher of Bleeding Through fame on bass, Francesco Artusato from All Shall Perish and Roy Lev-Ari on guitars with John Sankey, ex drummer of Divine Heresy beasting the drums. The name of the album seems rather apt when you listen to it and just like their live performance, the album promises to be an absolute face-melter.

Composed between 1963 and 2005 these four works form a spectrum that demonstrates a tendency among composers of American concert music to draw from a wide range of musical streams – classical, popular, folk and jazz. This colourful programme is performed by the North Carolina Symphony on their first BIS recording, conducted by Grant Llewellyn and with solo appearances by the celebrated jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis and his quartet.

This magnificent three-disc set has the first 63 recordings by Count Basie's Orchestra, all of his Deccas. The consistency is remarkable (with not more than two or three turkeys) and the music is the epitome of swing. With such soloists as Lester Young and Herschel Evans on tenors, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison, the great blues singer Jimmy Rushing, and that brilliant rhythm section of Basie, guitarist Freddie Green, bassist Walter Page, and drummer Jo Jones, the music is timeless.

Archie Shepp has been at various times a feared firebrand and radical, soulful throwback and contemplative veteran. He was viewed in the '60s as perhaps the most articulate and disturbing member of the free generation, a published playwright willing to speak on the record in unsparing, explicit fashion about social injustice and the anger and rage he felt. His tenor sax solos were searing, harsh, and unrelenting, played with a vivid intensity. But in the '70s, Shepp employed a fatback/swing-based R&B approach, and in the '80s he mixed straight bebop, ballads, and blues pieces displaying little of the fury and fire from his earlier days.

This recording presents music by the Czech composers Janáček, Martinů, and Haas, all of whom were prominent figures in their country’s musical history during the early twentieth century. The works are performed by the Janáček Chamber Orchestra, which has won awards for their interpretations of Czech music. Janáček wrote his String Quartet No. 1 during a particularly creative period towards the end of his life. It took its inspiration from Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata, a portrait of a loveless marriage. The dramatic power and deep emotion of this work, coupled with some extraordinary textures and eccentric orchestration, place it among the greatest string quartets ever written. It is here played in a version for string orchestra. Also recorded is the Suite, one of Janáček’s very first works for orchestral ensemble.

Luigi Boccherini was born in 1743 in Lucca. He was to become one of the greatest cellists of his time, and travelled all over Europe giving virtuoso performances. His compositional genius only fully emerged when he took up permanent residence at the court of the Infante Don Luis in Spain. He is most associated with chamber music, especially the string quintet. But his output also included about thirty symphonies. Three have been recorded here. Nos 3 and 8 were composed for Don Luis in 1771, whereas No. 21 was written for King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia in 1786. None of the symphonies is well known and they are seldom recorded.