Weather Report was an influential jazz fusion band of the 1970s and 1980s, pitting jazz with R&B, funk, and rock elements while still retaining an extremely high level of compositional and improvisational skills. Along with other groups that were founded by Miles Davis alumni Return to Forever, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Herbie Hancock's group, Weather Report was one of the greatest innovators of the jazz fusion genre at that time. They were also the most long-lived and perhaps the most artistically successful (as cited by Ken Burns) of the four groups.
