VALENTYNE SUITE

I have to admit that it is my favourite album of Colosseum. It has accompanied me since 1971 and I always return to it with great pleasure. I love to listen to its vinyl version (do you know the wonderful feeling when you take out the record carefully from the envelop, wipe it with a cloth with an antistatic liquid and put it on a turntable?), but I do not discard a CD played in the car either. This album has a magic, some force which does not allow you to stop listening to it. It is just like in Hitchock's films: they start with an earthquake and then the tension continues to grow. The Kettle is an earthquake here - it is a hard rock piece, with a daring rhythmic section where a guitar riff develops - if it had appeared in a Led Zeppelin album, it would have become a world-wide hit. The tension grows with the jazzy work Elegy, recorded with a participation of a string instruments, a nostalgic blues Butty's Blues and classic rock The Machine Demands A Sacrifice, to achieve the crescendo in Valentyne Suite, occupying the whole second side of the vinyl. It is a real masterpiece, the biggest artistic achievement of Colosseum. It consists of three parts, which were created in different periods and composed by different persons. However they constitute a coherent and logic whole, presenting first love feelings and first disappointments.The composition is perfectly arranged. Every instrument is precisely in its place, there is order, but there is also place for improvisations of organ, saxophone, and the guitar. It starts with a wonderful motive with organ, with a vibraphone undertaking a dialogue with them. Another part is a thrilling duo of saxophone and grand piano (yes, yes, no electronic imitator, but a real grand piano). Then a quick riff with the bass guitar introducing an energetic solo with organ finishing the first part. The second part starts pathetically; after a few organ accords there enter vocalize sung by several persons. It forms a background for a calm, saxophone solo part, which then becomes more predacious, not to say aggressive. As it is in Dick ... Strong drums accents end the second part. In the third part the guitar claimed to speak. The initial melancholic atmosphere, constructed together with a saxophone and organ, disappears when it starts to play more aggressively, and the rhythmic section sets out a quicker speed. And it continues till the culmination, followed by the repeated leading motive ending the work. In my personal progrock suites' ranking, Valentyne Suite has the leading place, although Tarkus ? ELP, Nine Feet Underground ? Caravan, or Close To The Edge ? Yes are just behind it.