To celebrate the 40th ''birthday'' of one of the world's best bands - Weather Report - the label Art of Groove is releasing the band's Rockpalast concert in Cologne 1983 - a premiere on DVD.

What a feast the concert was for the Cologne-based audience that night, and is now for us all these years later. As Omar Hakim has said: ''Weather Report wasn't typical instrumental music: there was Europe, Africa, jazz, blues, Latin, all inside one thing. It was true world music....''. Here's to that!

After Jaco Pastorius and Peter Erskine left the band, Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter decided to continue their successful project with a new rhythm set: drummer Omar Hakim, Victor Bailey on bass and percussionist Jose Rossy. For Bailey and Hakim it was the starting point of their international career.

Weather Report's Cologne concert shows the band in musical top form. In a more than two-hour show, the band sparks a firework of rhythm and melodies. Next to classics like ''Birdland,'' in this concert you will hear pieces from later phase of Weather Report: ''D Flat Waltz,'' ''Procession,'' ''Fast City,'' ''Where The Moon Goes'' and ''Two Lines''.

The material which was originally recorded by the WDR (West German Radio and Television Broadcasting) has been completely restored and re-mastered and is now appearing in a new version -- something that's not just for long-time fans of Weather Report. - Weather Report's Cologne concert shows the band in top form.