Mexicans Sacbe in the Dos Mundos (1986) and The Painters (1988)

This band gets my vote for the most underrated and unknown fusion band hailing from South of North America.   Description from Discogs:

Mexican fusion jazz group from 1976 to 1996, formed by brothers Eugenio, Enrique and Fernando Toussaint.

In a series of 5 magnificent albums from 1977's ST to1983's Aztlan including Toussaint's 'solo' album from 1983, they made some really delicious instrumental fusion with all those original progressive touches we love so much, perhaps resembling the Quantum albums out of Brazil, a band which is maybe not even better known than the Toussaints.  I hope everyone is familiar with those.  Coming later in the 80s the 'missing' works Two Worlds and The Painters, themed after various artists with the dreaded obligatory Frida Kahlo of course in there, were bound to disappoint a bit--it's difficult to recall later albums which are truly impressive, maybe Joel Dugrenot's Mosaiques (1990) would be one of the few.  Of course, you can expect all those eighties musical cliches like the digital-sounding drum set, the echoey chord attacks, the screechy squealing Sanbornian saxes, etc.

From Dos Mundos, The track called Xel-Ha:

And from The Painters which is actually and surprisingly superior to its predecessor perhaps due to the cohesive conceptual work, Lichtenstein's splashes, in audiological form:

I just love the imagination that went into those smashing chords at the beginning.

Note the involvement of Paul McCandless on The Painters.