A composer of gorgeous melodies, one of the most sensual was "A Remark You Made," the flowing ballad that followed "Birdland" on Weather Report's 1977 commercial breakthrough "Heavy Weather." Weather Report has never received its proper due from the jazz or the rock worlds. It was the one band that balanced songcraft with improvisation, technique with taste valued over dexterity. They embellished the jazz tradition with a rock energy by using sonic touches of the Middle East and Africa - and after a broad and booming jam, they'd return to hushed, intimate tunes. Every other fusion band  wanted to fall into a groove and sit there or else clobber the listener over the head with  blazing instrumental passages. Weather Report occupied a spot alone in that world.
Once Jaco Pastorious joined the band on bass, he became the focal point - and why not? He was the good-looking showboat untethered to the histories of jazz or rock. He seemed to be a man who landed here from outer space. Zawinul, though, was the anchor. Seated behind his keyboards, he made jazz sound adventurous and grounded, a point driven home in the recent big band album "Brown Street" and   on Columbia Legacy's Weather Report boxed set.
He died Tuesday in Vienna of a rare form of skin cancer. He was 75.