DEATH OF SIMONE WEIL

DARRELL KATZ (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 4, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: INNOVA
• ASIN: B000088ECC
• Also Available in: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #660,325 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tragedy in Jazz?, November 21, 2003

By 

Meyer Goodman (Flushing, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: DEATH OF SIMONE WEIL (Audio CD)

"The Death of Simone Weil" opened up for me a world of music I nver knew existed. Neither a jazz-buff in the popular sense nor in the sense of "art" music, I came to this gripping work because of the subject.

I remember the sad years of the Holocaust, I saw in Simone Weil the saddest detritus of all -- a great soul and a great mind destroyed cy the callow indifference that followed that calamity.

I had a strange question to ask: how could a jazz style describe the tragedy of Simone Weil's life. The answer is in the text and music itself.

A touching portrayal of Simone's journey into self-destruction, of scenes and experiences of the journey, gives rise to music of unexpected sobriety -- unexpected because the jazz idiom, usually up-beat, proved elastic enough to comprise the sense of tragedy without abandonment of the jazz idiom. How Katz does thisthis is a wonder to behold.

Essentially a cantata, "The Death of Simone Weil" recalls the Bach cantatas: introduction, narrative, aria, orchestral interludes, summation -- -- this all in this work.

I recommend this CD highly to anyone with an ear for "serious" jazz of a high order.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jazz for intellegent people or A Real Review, November 13, 2003

By 

John Gray Hunter Jr. "smartalex" (Wilmington, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: DEATH OF SIMONE WEIL (Audio CD)

This jazz cantata is unique. Simone Weil, the subject of this work, is a drag but Paula Tatarunis' verse is witty and clever and so is the music. At 1st you wonder how it all will fit together, because jazz seems the wrong medium for such a story. But the foil of Darrell Katz's upbeat and witty music fits perfectly with the imaginative and also strangely upbeat libretto....every word of which is understandable in Rebecca Shrimpton's straight forward singing. It's fun, in a serious sort of way. It demands repeat listenings....there's a lot of subtle stuff going on here. At the opening ad libbed moments you think "what have I got myself into here?" but it very quickly all makes sense.

If you want "moon, June, tune" or "let's dance" jazz, forget it. But if you want to explore something unique, strange, new but not so off the wall as to be incomprehensible, give it a try.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Most Adventurous Jazz Cantata, November 18, 2003

By 

Charles A. Rudin "composerudin" (Allentown, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: DEATH OF SIMONE WEIL (Audio CD)

You need to hear this CD if only to be sure not to miss the sultry and compelling voice of Rebecca Shrimpton. She is truly amazing!
The work itself is ambtitious in that it employs the sorts of large-scale, multi-movement forms so rarely encountered in Jazz composition, and frequently mixes in a highly successful fashion hard-driving jazz ideas with avant-garde "Classical" techniques and harmonic language. The playing by (student!) performers from Berklee is powerful and at times mind-blowing. If you're looking for something that reaches beyond the ordinary, look no further. Katz goes where few dare (or are genuinely qualified) to tread. Take the trip.