Phalanx | ja

There are several bands and artists using the name Phalanx: 1) A free jazz band from the mid-late 80's. Like the New York Art Quartet had done two decades before, Phalanx came and went in the mid-1980s, an ad-hoc supergroup that thrived and disappeared. Original Phalanx captures the quartet in a rumbling, springy glory, alight through James "Blood" Ulmer's craftily detuned guitar and the build-it-and-wobble-it rhythmic playing of bassist Sirone and drummer Rashied Ali. The star, though, is the late George Adams. His playing is inspired, swinging so hard and high that the musical registers turn to blurs. The band's...