Weather Report was a truly great band whose distance from "fusion" becomes increasingly apparent as time passes. To what degree they were or were not "jazz" depends on whose lens you're looking through, but objectively, in terms of compositions, color, texture, rhythmic layering, and both individual and collective virtuosity, they were truly in a class of their own. And they had a real arc of their own, all the way to the end.
No time to engage in the old arguments, especially the "Where Is Wayne?" thing. Wayne had his own life arc, and a portion of it did not involve being the star of Weather Report. But when he was there, he ws all the way there, being whatever Wayne he was at the time. And jesus, live, Wayne Shorter took no prisoners and suffered no fools - including Jaco at his worst. I saw that happen once and it was terrifyingly life-affirming!
To know Wayne Shorter's music, you have to know all of it, even the stuff you might not think you like. His was a superior musical mind that militantly rejected triteness and cheapness.
His output may now at last be finite, but it will also prove to be infinite (for as long as we can tell).