Weather Report played a central role in jazz's embrace of rock, funk, and world music in the '70s and '80s. Their most popular recordings capture a genius for fusion that's both complex and playful; their muscularly grooving take of “Birdland” is encased in Joe Zawinul's cosmic synth swooshes and electric keyboard stabs, while the percussive “Black Market” is lined with Wayne Shorter's soaring saxophone cries and Jaco Pastorius' watery basslines. But the band could also lay down some incredibly challenging music, like “Mysterious Traveller,” which drenches their fractured, pointillist funk patterns in moody, ashram-worthy drones.