Just when you thought there couldn't be more Colosseum cuts to be excavated, behold, you doubters, six more CDs from the grizzled gladiators of jazz-rock. Some material is known from other compilations but the feat of the tiny band of dedicated collectors who have pulled Transmissions together from off-air recordings, bootlegs, even naughtily-nicked Beeb tapes, deserves huge praise.

The bonuses here include nearly a whole CD featuring James Litherland whose writing, vox and guitar so helped forge the original Colosseum sound. Nothing though, from Jim Roche who's reduced to a bit of a footnote these days.

But the real bounty is the session with the New Jazz Orchestra, MD'd by Neil Ardley. It reflects the genuine bond (geddit?) between jazz and rock at the time, often mediated through Jack Bruce songs. That sessions traverse ‘pop’, ‘rock’ and ‘jazz’ slots in the Beeb's programming shows how ‘uncategorisable’ the then contemporary scene was. With the New Jazz Orchestra there's an Ardley original, ‘Shades of Blue’, that wouldn't return to Colosseum's playlist. There's also a powerfully orchestrated take on the joyous Mike Gibbs song ‘Tanglewood '63’, thankfully minus the acappella vox that found its way into Colosseum's live act. There's also a nod toward Hiseman's days with Mike Taylor whose death so rocked the jazz world of the time, with a cover of ‘Jumping off the Sun’.

Jazzwise contributor Chris Welch's notes are splendid, as you'd expect, although with Heckstall-Smith and Hiseman, the prime musical voices of Colosseum, now performing at the great gig in the sky, it's largely down to Dave Greenslade to claw back memories from the archaeological remains of jazz-rock.

This 6-CD package should have coincided with the Colosseum reunion Covid-19 has since squished. But until that happens, Transmissions remains a rocking reminder of how the BBC then covered in depth a wide range of musics.