Jazz Articles about Rolling Thunder

Rolling Thunder: Live in Japan

by Matthew Wuethrich
February 3, 2004

Rolling Thunder fills its music with alternating stretches of probing improvisation and restless silence. Instead of a fire that burns, the music on Live in Japan ripples: notes are tossed into the placid silence and their waves flow outwards until they gradually dissipate at the edges of hearing. They free the listener from analyzing the music down into recognizable forms; musical structures become invisible vehicles that deliver the group’s emotionally charged explorations.

Recorded during the quartet’s 2003 Japanese ...