Weather Report This is Jazz

Or shall we say, that is that, the final album by a group called Weather Report, now captained and guided by Josef Zawinul. The photo of Zawinul and Wayne Shorter shaking hands on the back cover of the LP is definitely a farewell gesture, for Shorter turns up on only three of the eight cuts (having left the band while this record was being made), and the record's world-music slant gives it a closer kinship with Zawinul's subsequent albums than with WR's earlier output…

This Is This is the last album of Weather Report. The photo of Zawinul and Wayne Shorter shaking hands on the back cover of the LP is definitely a farewell gesture, for Shorter turns up on only three of the eight cuts (having left the band while this record was being made), and the record's world-music slant gives it a closer kinship with Zawinul's subsequent albums than with WR's earlier output. Already on the delicate "I'll Never Forget You," Zawinul's synthesizer is replacing Wayne as a simulated solo wind voice. Minu Cinelu is on percussion on vocals, Victor Bailey on bass, and co-producer Peter Erskine returns for one final fling on drums (Omar Hakim handles the sticks on "Consequently").

This 13-song, mid-priced compilation covers material dating from "I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me," cut on March 8, 1935 to "Mood Indigo" from March 31, 1964. The contents include concert versions of "Take the 'A' Train" and "Satin Doll" from the All-Star Road Band releases; the 1940-vintage "Stormy Weather" (previously in print on the double-album Duke Ellington Presents Ivie Anderson); "Autumn Leaves" with Ozzie Bailey on vocals; a pair of cuts ("St. Louis Blues," "Body and Soul") off the otherwise unavailable Cosmic Scene LP, and "I Can't Get Started" from the until-recently unavailable Piano in the Foreground album…

This double-CD has 24 different groups of fusion musicians (including some from Europe) paying tribute to Weather Report. Despite the personnel and often the instrumentation changing from track to track, there is a unity to the project and many of the bands sound quite a bit like Weather Report, either purposely as part of the tribute or naturally. The programming is somewhat random and the bands bring back the sound, grooves, and spirits of Weather Report rather than necessarily always sticking to their compositions. All in all, this is a heartfelt and very well-played tribute that can also serve as an introduction to a cross-section of some of today's top fusion musicians, many of whom are not household names yet.

Weather Report is generally regarded as the greatest jazz fusion band of all time, with the biggest jazz hit ("Birdland") from the best jazz fusion album (1977's Heavy Weather). But the group's studio mastery sometimes overshadows the fact that it was also a live juggernaut - so don't overlook the outstanding live and studio album from 1979, 8:30. This was a rare quartet version of Weather Report, with co-leaders in keyboardist Joe Zawinul and saxophonist Wayne Shorter. The bassist was the inimitable Jaco Pastorius, the drummer a young Peter Erskine. Pastorius is otherworldly on early gems like "Black Market," the breakneck "Teen Town," and his solo showcase, "Slang" (in which he quotes Jimi Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun")…