2006 · Album
Forecast: Tomorrow
Recorded Various sessions, 1969–1986 · Columbia/Legacy · Produced by Various
Thirty-Seven Stops Across a Career
Three discs that map Weather Report from raw beginnings to a DJ remix farewell.
Forecast: Tomorrow is a 3-CD/1-DVD career-spanning compilation that gathers 37 tracks chronologically, and the chronological arrangement is the whole point. It doesn't just collect the hits — it builds a story. The set opens before Weather Report even existed, pulling in ensemble work with Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley (the latter featuring Joe Zawinul), plus a track from a Wayne Shorter solo album. That framing device is smart: it shows what these musicians were doing before they co-founded the band, which helps you hear exactly what they brought to it and where they were headed.
Once the Weather Report material kicks in, you get a genuine survey of how the band changed shape over its existence — from the freer, more open-textured early records through the funk-inflected period that made them commercially significant, and on into the later years. Two previously unreleased tracks add real value for anyone who already owns the studio albums, and the closing DJ Logic remix of '125th Street Congress' lands as an unexpected but honest gesture toward the music's afterlife. It acknowledges that this catalog didn't just sit still in the archive — it kept circulating.
Whether this is the right entry point depends on what you already know. If you're new to Weather Report, this is a reasonable place to start because it covers so much ground efficiently. If you own the key albums — Heavy Weather (1977), Mysterious Traveller (1974), Sweetnighter (1973) — you'll find the compilation most useful for the unreleased material and the pre-band tracks that give context. The DVD presumably adds visual documentation, which matters for a group that was always a live proposition as much as a studio one. This is a well-constructed package, not a cash-in.
Who's playing
Miroslav Vitoušbass
Joe Zawinulkeyboard, piano
Wayne Shortersaxophone
Alphonse Mouzondrums
Airto Moreirapercussion
Where next?
More by Weather Report
All 13 albums →
The musicians on this record
The All Seeing Eye 1966
Wayne Shorter
plays saxophone here
plays saxophone here
Brown Street 2006
Joe Zawinul
plays keyboard here
plays keyboard here
Universal Syncopations II 2003
Miroslav Vitous
plays bass here
plays bass here
Samba de flora 1989
Airto Moreira
plays percussion here
plays percussion here
