Jazz history isn't exactly littered with great albums featuring string orchestras. There have been a few—tenor saxophonist Stan Getz's Focus (Verve, 1961) and British reed player Tim Garland's If The Sea Replied (Sirocco, 2005) are both masterpieces, but precious few others were recorded in the 44 years which separate them. New Orleans' trumpeter Terence Blanchard's A Tale Of God's Will (A Requiem For Katrina) is one of the genre's infrequent successes. A majestic and emotionally-charged disc, it employs the sonic grandeur of the 40-piece Northwest Sinfonia to convey the magnitude of the devastation Hurricane Katrina wreaked on New Orleans in 2005, without at any time compromising the fundamental jazz character of the music. And it does so without bombast, its layered and nuanced character avoids literal evocations of raging wind and water, suggesting instead measured grief, and a quiet determination to rebuild and move on.