Weather Report

Weather Report was the jazz fusion band that sounded like the future, launched in New York by a founding crew that put Joe Zawinul, the Austrian keyboard man, next to Wayne Shorter on saxophone, with the Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš, Alphonse Mouzon behind the drums, and Don Alias and Barbara Burton on percussion. They began as free improvisers with avant-garde, electronic leanings, and when Vitouš left, Zawinul took the wheel and steered them toward a funky, edgy groove laced with R&B and music from around the globe.

Zawinul was a synthesizer wizard, grabbing every new tone and texture the machines could make, while Shorter's sax cut through like a searchlight. The standard setup was a five-piece built around those two, with bass, drums and percussion filling out the sound, and some of the best players of the era passed through, including Jaco Pastorius, Alphonso Johnson and Victor Bailey on bass, Peter Erskine and Omar Hakim on drums and Airto Moreira and Alex Acuña on percussion.

"Birdland" is the one rock fans know, a jubilant, whistling melody that builds like a parade, and the band took the Grammy for Best Jazz Fusion Performance in 1979. They recorded for Columbia, were ranked among the defining acts of fusion alongside Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever, and called it a day in 1986.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.