There’s a lot to be said about COLOSSEUM but what’s rarely mentioned is this ensemble’s intellectual foundation that, together with mind-boggling musicianship, was one of the reason they were able to improvise to an extent where none of the band’s concert sounded the same as the performances which preceded and followed it. That’s why, with a single live album releases during the collective’s original run of the late ’60s – early ’70s and a smattering of on-stage recordings added to the reissues such as "Valentyne Suite" – as well as the recent flurry of archival tapes made available on Repertoire – the demand for more documents from the past doesn’t seem to diminish. As an answer, the aforementioned German label will issue a 6CD box set at the end of October, titled “Transmissions: Live At The BBC” and comprising the group’s gigs for the Beeb.
It’s a genuine bonanza for the aficionados wanting to delve in and stay in the COLOSSEUM element for hours, with most of these cuts not only never seeing the light of day in tangible form but also – as is in the case of “A Whiter Shade Of Powell” and a few other numbers – didn’t make it to an LP back then. A treasure trove, indeed.
Transmissions:
Live At The BBC
CD 1 –
Top Gear, 19 January 1969:
1. The Road She Walked Before
2. Backwater Blues
3. A Whiter Shade Of Powell
Symonds On Sunday, 16 March 1969:
(re-broadcast World Service version)
4. Walking In The Park
5. Interview with Jon Hiseman
6. Beware The Ides Of March
7. Plenty Hard Luck
Johnnie Walker, 24 May 1969:
8. Elegy
9. Walking In The Park
10. Butty’s Blues
11. I Can’t Live Without You
Top Gear, 6 July 1969:
12. Elegy
13. The Grass Is Greener
14. Hiseman’s Condensed History Of Mankind
15. February’s Valentyne
Symonds On Sunday, 20 July 1969:
16. Elegy
17. The Road She Walked Before
18. Walking In The Park
19. Butty’s Blues
CD 2 –
Radio 1 Jazz Workshop, 17 July 1969:
1. Elegy (take 1)
2. I Can’t Live Without You
3. Walking In The Park
4. Those About To Die (take 1)
5. Butty’s Blues (Take 1)
6. Mandarin
7. The Grass Is Greener
Top Gear, 22 November 1969:
8. Interview with Dick Heckstall-Smith
9. Lost Angeles
10. Arthur’s Moustache
Unknown session, late 1969 – early 1970:
11. Jumping Off The Sun
12. Theme For An Imaginary Western
13. Take Me Back To Doomsday
14. Lost Angeles (partial)
15. Angle
16. The Machine Demands A Sacrifice
CD 3 –
John Peel’s Sunday Concert, 8 March 1970:
1. Lost Angeles
2. Downhill And Shadows
3. Theme For An Imaginary Western
4. Introduction: John Peel
5. The Machine Demands A Sacrifice
Sounds Of The 70s, 7 April 1970:
6. Bring Out Your Dead
7. Time Lament
8. Daughter Of Time
CD 4 –
John Peel’s Sunday Concert, 8 November 1970:
1. Introduction: John Peel
2. Rope Ladder To The Moon
3. Introduction: John Peel
4. Downhill And Shadows
5. Introduction: John Peel
6. Tanglewood ’63
7. Introduction: John Peel
8. Time Lament
9. Introduction: John Peel
10. Lost Angeles
CD 5 –
Sounds Of The 70s, 21 July 1970:
1. Butty’s Blues
2. Shades Of Blue
3. Rope Ladder To The Moon
4. Tanglewood ’63
Sounds Of The 70s, 19 February 1971:
5. Take Me Back To Doomsday
6. Skelington
7. The Pirate’s Dream
8. Tanglewood ’63
CD 6 –
Sounds Of The 70s, 10 September 1971:
1. Jumping Off The Sun
2. Sleepwalker
3. The Pirate’s Dream
4. Upon A Tomorrow
bonus tracks:
Symonds On Sunday, 16 March 1969:
5. Walking In The Park (off-air)
Jazz Workshop 1969 – extra takes:
6. Those About To Die (take 2)
7. Butty’s Blues (take 2)
8. Elegy (take 2)
