Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations, often using wind and brass and displaying a high level of instrumental technique. The term "jazz rock" is often used as a synonym for "jazz fusion" as well as for music performed by late 1960s and 1970s-era rock bands that added jazz elements to their music. Some progressive rock is also labelled "fusion".
After a decade of popularity during the 1970s, fusion expanded its improvisatory and experimental approaches through the 1980s and 1990s. Fusion albums, even those that are made by the same group or artist, may include a variety of styles. Rather than being a codified musical style, fusion can be viewed as a musical tradition or approach.
Weather Report was an American jazz-rock band of the 1970s and early 1980s. The band was co-led by the Austrian-born keyboard player Joe Zawinul and the American saxophonist Wayne Shorter (and, initially, by Czech bass player Miroslav Vitouš). Other prominent members at various points in the band’s lifespan included Jaco Pastorius, Peter Erskine, Alphonso Johnson, Victor Bailey, Airto Moreira and Chester Thompson.
Alongside Chick Corea's Return to Forever, Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, the Pat Metheny Group, Spyro Gyra and the early 1970s Miles Davis electric bands, Weather Report is considered to be one of the pre-eminent jazz fusion bands, although the band members themselves disdained the term. As a continuous working unit, Weather Report outlasted all of its contemporaries despite frequent changes of personnel, with a career lasting sixteen years between 1970 and 1986.