Compost

Jazz fusion isn’t a genre typically covered here at The “I-Own-Every-Record-You’d-Never-Buy” CD Consumer’s Guide, but it’s hard to pass up an opportunity to review an album by a band called Compost. First released in 1972 on Columbia Records, this group’s self-titled debut features a handful of industry heavyweights, including Jack DeJohnette (organ), Bob Moses (vocals, drums) and Harold Vick (saxophone, flute). The band’s sound, although ultimately rooted in jazz, incorporates elements of pop, rock and psychedelic soul in its elongated, fusion-based compositions. The musical blueprint is essentially the same for all of the album’s eight tracks: soulful vocals sprinkled over layers of pulsating rhythmic patterns and intricate horn breaks. “Sweet Berry Wine” is the band’s lone relationship song, although there is nothing romantic about “Inflation Blues:” “A dollar’s worth about 30 cents/you workin’ your behind off and you still can’t pay the rent/the more money you make the more Uncle Sam takes/and the union still cry for more dues.” Of course no ‘70s-era jazz album is complete without the requisite nonsensical song title. In this case it’s “Bwaata,” a largely instrumental piece about a "magic land where peace and love go hand in hand.” Commerical success eluded Compost (the album charted on neither the jazz nor pop charts), but the group did stick around long enough to record a follow-up; Life is Round was issued in 1973.

Notes: I can’t seem to find anything from Compost’s self-titled debut, so you’ll have to settle for something from the group’s sophomore effort. Here is an audio-only YouTube clip of a song called “The Ripper” from Life is Round: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eklWS2r9jmQ&feature=related.