Weather Report - This Is Jazz (1996)

Because most diehard Weather Report enthusiasts already have everything included on this addition to Legacy/Sony's This Is Jazz series of compilations, the "best of" CD serves primarily as an introduction to the fusion innovators' breakthroughs of the 1970s. While hardly the last word on the band, This Is Jazz isn't a bad introduction at all. Naturally, the disc contains Weather's best-known piece, the infectious "Birdland." But equally captivating are the eerie yet funky "Mysterious Traveler," the intriguing "Man in the Green Shirt," the congenial "Young and Fine," the hauntingly abstract "The Moors" and the Asian-influenced "Black Market." Boasting improvisatory, risk-taking and imaginative gems full of blues feeling, This Is Jazz 10 is jazz in the truest sense of the word.