A Big Band soundtrack on a theme of war and suffering? Simone Weil was a Jew obsessed with Christian and Buddhist worldviews, a mystic who claimed to have visions of a realm beyond reality, and a reclusive philosopher who starved herself to death in 1941. "The Death of Simone Weil", composed by Darrell Katz, with text by Paula Tatarunis, deals with the imagination, grace, bombings, invasions, desire, fishing, and the Pope. Weil’s story unfolds in a surreal, improvisatory jazz cantata that seamlessly mixes modern composition and the jazz legacy into a mature and personal style. The alto voice of Rebecca Shrimpton effortlessly captures the subtle shadings of the starkly beautiful text. Boston’s powerfully virtuosic Jazz Composers Alliance Orchestra accompanies with fistfuls of fire. "The Death of Simone Weil" stands out in the jazz vocal tradition in terms of both scale and ambition, and whose depth and economy of expression are worthy of the subject. All in all, it’s an exciting soirée with the far-out, the insane, and the beautifully strange.