Bill Laswell is someone who has been on the edge of my musical consciousness ever since the 1980s when he produced and played bass on albums by Laurie Anderson, PIL, The Golden Palominos and one of my favourite albums – Swans: The Burning World. Some more adventurous of my friends had albums by Material, Painkiller, and some of his ambient dub albums in the 90s and gradually I became aware of the wide scope of his musical collaborations and explorations. It seemed there was barely a country or genre where he hasn’t been involved in drawing together different musicians and forms. Here are just some of the more familiar ones:
Afrika Bambaataa, Bob Marley, Brian Eno, Carlos Santana, David Byrne, Dub Syndicate, Gil Scott-Heron, Ginger Baker, Herbie Hancock, Jah Wobble, John Zorn, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Manu Dibango, Mick Jagger, Miles Davis, Motorhead, New York Gong, Nona Hendryx, Paul Bowles, Peter Gabriel, Pharoah Sanders, The Ramones, Robert Miles, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sly and Robbie, Sting, Talvin Singh, The Last Poets, Tom Verlaine, Tony Williams, Whitney Houston, William S. Burroughs, Yoko Ono, Zakir Hussain
His inventive and uninhibited spirit seems not just to draw out the best of others, but also to encourage and normalize a culture of openness and experimentation. I think I love that approach, and what he brings to the world.
I was listening to a song from an old Word cover mount CD – Bole 2 Harlem. Delightful as it is, there was only one allbum released. Wanting to hear more similar sounds, it turned out that the sister of the Ethiopian singer, Tigist Shibabaw, is also a singer – Ejigayehu Shibabaw, known as Gigi, and the partner of…. Bill Laswell, who produced her albums, a song from one is in the comments below. She has extraordiinarily flutttering and pure vocals, accompanied in this clip by soaring flute.
It might be fun, in line with the OP title to ‘Kevin Bacon’ Bill Laswell – how many links between any musician and him?
Less whimsically, I would love you to feel invited to post your favourite tracks involving Bill, or some interesting anecdotes about him – I checked and was somewhat surprised that there hasn’t been more than a couple of references to him on the AW in the last ten years. He is so wide ranging, I can think of several AW regulars who surely could share deeper knowledge of his output.
However, a wider thought is about the power of engaged and collaborative creativity in general. Episode 24 of The History of Music in 500 Songs podcast is on the song Ko Ko Mo by Gene and Eunice, which was successful for them, but even more so for others. Andrew Hickey sagely commented that they didn’t do better because they were on their own – they weren’t part of a scene. Many of the musicians and others in his early episodes come up time and again due to their involvement in each other’s records. It is the collaboration which seems to make great art – the sparking off each other creatively.
Who for you are the great collaborators, those who are prolific catalysts of creative music with others?
https://www.thevinylfactory.com/features/introduction-bill-laswell-10-records
Here’s Gigi!
I had that album and it isn’t bad if inessential. He’s done a lot of stuff with Jah Wobble; both are bassists who enjoy dub revisionings of music from cultures less often encountered in western music. I have Version2Version, his “dub transmission” with Wobble, but can’t say I have dipped into it for years. I think I have an album by an Egyptian band he worked with too, as well as his 2 remixes, of Miles Davis (Panthalassa) and Bob Marley (Dreams of Freedom). The former makes Bitches Brew sound as accessible as the Archie’s, but the Marley is a tad more orthodox.
He is a nice idea, who then doesn’t encourage repeated listening.
Mind you, I’m sure such words will bring some staunch advocates out their smoky lofts and basements.
Thanks for starting the responses, Retro. As you were one of the two people who referenced Laswell, (the other being Colin) it doesn’t surprise me so much, nor that you have a a stack of Laswell- connected albums in your stash.
‘Inessential’ is an interesting adjective to use, a close neighbour of ‘slight ‘ and dare I say, ‘inoffensive’. Not that I would disagree with you. There are plenty of records in my collection that I could get through a while decade without missing, though they are nice to hear when happenstance brings them my way. Mind you, I’ve heard Gigi’s earlier pre-Laswell albums and he definitely enhanced the pleasure of hearing her vocal tones with the instrumentation behind them.
I agree that some of his music can be very intense, almost an endurance test, but then he can be responsible for something as beautiful as this, somehow taming skronkmeister John Zorn:
The album ‘Imaginary Cuba’ is well worth a listen.
I haven’t heard much of Bill Laswell’s bass playing, but love the remix work he did on Miles Davis’s ‘Panthalassa’ and Carlos Santana’s ‘Divine Light’. On ‘Panthalassa’, Laswell takes recordings from Davis’s ‘In a Silent Way’, ‘On the Corner’, and ‘Get Up With It’ and makes a highly listenable tone poem out of what can be quite challenging music. He does the same with Santana’s fine albums ‘Love Devotion Surrender’ and ‘Illuminations’ (with Alice Coltrane) by taking fairly challenging music and transforming it into something greater than the composite parts.
Both excellent albums!
I also like the two bonkers Sly and Robbie albums from the 80s…. Rhythm Killers and Language Barrier. The latter has a harmonica turn from Bob Dylan. Weird stuff, still sounds futuristic, but also fun. In a similar place as the Herbie Hancock Future Shock album.
He did a lot of work with African musicians on the Celluloid label. Sometimes I think it’s great and other times it all just sounds Laswelled.
Re Panthalssa – the Marley one Chimes Of Freedom, I think, is rather excellent.
That sounds pretty good (it is in fact Dreams of Freedom) and it will soon be winging its way to me. Thanks for the tip.
I’ve loved this track for years since I first bought the album on cassette. He’s a great man for pulling people together.
During the late 1980s/early 1990s Laswell made a couple of great albums – »Third Power« is one of them. »Seven Souls« and »Hallucination Engine« were released as Material at the time, and he also made a »solo« album, »Hear No Evil« around that time. They all feature his mix of heavy dub, arabian trance and slow-motion funk.
Here’s a great example from his album with William S. Burroughs:
Also worth checking out are the releases on his own labels, AXIOM and especially BLACK ARC – featuring great combinations incl. The Last Poets with Bootsy Collins, or Buddy Miles with Nicky Skopelitis…
Roddy Frame to Bill Laswell – one degree – Marcus Miller played with both.
I’ll set a challenge… Lemmy Kilmister
If you allow actors then it’s possible.
Easy-peasy- Laswell played on and produced Public Image Limited’s Album. Lemmy Kilmister tried to teach Sid Vicious to play bass.
I’m surprised we’ve got this far down the thread, or anywhere really, without mentioning David Sylvian.
I really like Bill Laswell’s “Dreams of Freedom: Ambient Translations of Bob Marley in Dub”.
Even shorter than Gary managed. Bill produced the Motörhead album Orgasmatron, a track from which, among many others, is embedded in this Quietus interview:
https://thequietus.com/interviews/strange-world-of/bill-laswell-interview/
I prefer a more convoluted way.
Michael ‘Wurzel’ Burston of Motörhead played on Quazi be Goode with some of Fairport Convention who had a member called Richard Thompson who also played with The Golden Palaminos and 9f course Bill Laswell.
I had forgotten that he was involved in Herbie Hancock’s Rockit and Future Shock album.
Also, I have the album but didn’t realise that he played on Daniel Ponce’s New York Now.
How about Carol Kaye? She has appeared on 10,000 records, they reckon. Much better bass player than Laswell in my view.
Brian Eno is a catalyst for so much of the music I love. I think I’d be quite happy if I could only listen to records he’s been involved in for the rest of my life.
I love Jimmy Page’s pre-Zeppelin work. 😉
Thanks for responding to and initiating the third of my (rather ambitious) three prong fork of an OP, though knocking poor old Bill by comparing him to Carol Kaye seems a bit unfair – different skillsets, I would suggest. A session musician is someone brought in to play on/add magic to a song/album, not to direct or catalyse.
Brian Eno is a better comparison, to my mind, even more so as a self-professed non-musician. Like Laswell, he seems indiscriminate in his appetite for collaborating across all forms of music.
Johnny Otis and Ahmet Ertegun, from listening to the ‘500 songs’ podcast, seem to be other good examples of creative people at the crossroads between many musicians. Probably many other label heads could be seen in the same light – Tony Wilson, Alan McGee, Geoff Travis, Ivo Watts Russell, etc.
He produced Village Life an album by Herbie Hancock on keyboards and Foday Musa Suso on kora. I play it a lot.
In my enthusiastic OP, I omitted to say anything about Bill Laswell’s health, which is an error. It mentions in his Wikipedia page that “Laswell suffered health problems which required hospitalization in December 2022 and prolonged recovery, which jeopardized his tenure of Orange Music Studio”.
According to his Gofundme page, he’s not out of the woods, still needs oxygen to breathe, and risks eviction and loss of his studio. A sad story, I’m afraid.
Thanks for all the music suggestions above. Those I have managed to source streams for I will listen to, and maybe report back on:
Imaginary Cuba, Seven Souls, Ambient Dub, Sacred System, Hallucination Engine.
The one I haven’t found yetm that intrigues me is Bob Marley (Dreams of Freedom). Something to look out for, once I’ve heard the others.
Here’s a starter assuming you do Spotify
Thanks, Junior. I just looked on YouTube and there are several playlists and entire album clips, so I obviously hadn’t looked very hard…
Here’s the closest I could get to a Bill Laswell/Bill Frisell collaboration: