Who says the UK does weather? Originally released in the USA a year ago this fine box set, which could quite easily have been tagged the Jaco Pastorius Years, has still to receive a British release. It's available however on import through online retailers, and is similar to Weather Report's The Columbia Albums 1971-1975 box (reviewed Jazzwise 168) released in the UK last autumn. Like that set this includes the group's albums remastered, extended and presented in cardboard mini-LP sleeves, and features their 1976-82 titles: Black Market, Heavy Weather, Mr Gone, 8.30, Night Passage and Weather Report, together with a booklet containing full track information and notes by the box set's producer, Richard Seidel. If Weather Report's first phase had been about raw experimentalism, fiery collective improvisation and boundary crunching innovation, then this second phase represented a complex, more sophisticated, though nonetheless powerful vehicle, with Zawinul's increasingly bold compositions, Shorter moving into more oblique territory and wayward bass genius Jaco Pastorius adding his own high-wire exploits and rewriting the electric bass handbook for generations to come.

For many it was the group's finest hour. And their most successful, with all albums hitting the heights of the Billboard jazz charts as well as appearing on the pop charts and even scoring a Top 40 single with ‘Birdland’ from Heavy Weather. For previous WR avoiders this is the perfect place to start, but given that most of the catalogue was remastered by Bob Belden and Mark Wilder 10 years ago, then followed up with Live and Unreleased and the career spanning box set, Forecast Tomorrow, do devoted fans really need to reach for their wallets again? The answer, certainly for completists, is a resounding yes. Not only do these new Mark Wilder remasters improve on the Belden reissues, giving a slightly more detailed and involving listen, but all except the final album have been extended with bonus live cuts and, importantly, two previously unreleased tracks. Black Market is extended with a stunning, previously unheard live version of the title track from the Havana Jam festival in 1979, as well as live versions of ‘Elegant People’ and Pastorius' solo tour-de-force, ‘Portrait of Tracy’, recorded in 1977 and taken from the now not so easy to find Live and Unreleased. Fattening up Heavy Weather are the L and U takes of ‘Black Market’ and ‘Teen Town’ from London's Rainbow in 1977, while the previously unreleased live cut of ‘Birdland’ from Havana Jam is the icing on the cake. Mr Gone gets the L and U takes of ‘River People’ and ‘In A Silent Way/Waterfall’, while the live/studio double set, 8.30, featuring the killer quartet of Zawinul, Shorter, Pastorius and Pete Erskine, now gets ‘Scarlet Woman’ restored after it was left off the first CD pressing. This great quartet also gets to stretch out on the quietly intense Night Passage, which gets four bonus cuts, including ‘Teen Town’ from the Havana Jam album, and ‘Port of Entry’, ‘Fast City’ and ‘Night Passage’ from L and U, while 1982's Weather Report comes unadorned with bonus bits but does seem to have improved with age, despite this great line-up being on the point of disintegration. Not surprisingly subsequent line-ups never got the forecast quite right again.