Break Out the Floor Speakers: Bill Laswell
Blending past, present, future and maybe
Bill Laswell is, to begin with, a phenomenal bassist. He grew up in Detroit, and earned some of his first music paychecks playing in funk bands in a town that takes its R&B very seriously.
But his second defining characteristic is “prolific” — the man has played on or produced, literally, hundreds of albums over the past 40 years, taking in everything from funk to jazz, Cuban to Indian, dub to avant-garde.
The man puts out more recorded music than any other dozen musicians you or I might name.
My OCD often manifests as a desire to own complete sets of anything I collect. Complete Sinatra collection? Done. Dire Straits, A-Z? Done. Complete Basie discography? In progress.
Laswell cured me of that.
There is simply no way a non-millionaire could own every album, EP or single that Laswell has put out. And even a lower-rung millionaire might not be a millionaire any longer after purchasing the entire Laswell catalogue to date.
And the thing is, everything he’s ever done that I’ve listened to has been well worth the listen.
Now, I’m no Laswell expert — I’ve only heard a sliver of his work.
But I am a huge fan, and it started with two of the most startling “remix” projects yet attempted: “Panthalassa: The Music of Miles Davis 1969-1974” and “Imaginary Cuba.”
Both created a fuss on their release, the Davis set in ’98, Cuba a year later.
Miles purists were outraged that Laswell not only remixed their hero’s studio tracks, but utterly reimagined them.
Blue Note and Verve have both made small mints by allowing hip hop artists and dee jays to have access to original master tapes from seminal jazz sessions of the 1950s and ’60s, with dance-ready “acid jazz” versions of classic jazz cuts resulting.
But “Panthalassa” is no club-friendly acid jazz take on Miles: This is something else entirely. While the original multi-tracks from albums like “On the Corner,” “In a Silent Way” and “Get Up With It” form the basis of Laswell’s vision, it is truly it’s own work of art — with Miles Davis as a key ingredient.
Critics of the project likened it to using Picasso’s palette but making your own painting, while those who approved said it was more akin to tearing a house completely down and then building a new one with the same materials.
The cries of blasphemy (and Miles himself had passed a few years earlier, so wasn’t around to voice his view on things) certainly propelled Laswell’s name into the jazz universe in ways it hadn’t been before.
A year later, “Imaginary Cuba” came out. (And note that in 1998 and ’99, Laswell was leader or co-leader on 13 other full-length albums, while also producing even more for other musicians.)
For this project, Laswell took field recordings of traditional Cuban musicians and mixed it up into a melange of the son, new age, dub, electronica and avant garde.
There were, as always with Laswell, critics who charged that he was taking liberties with the creative work of the artists whose field recordings he was using as the base of this project. Still others, including your loyal correspondent, were utterly mesmerized by the swirling, dreamlike ambience he’d created.
Perhaps mining safer, less sacred territory, in 2001 he remixed two of Carlos Santana’s more esoteric albums, “Illuminations” and “Love, Devotion & Surrender” into a new whole. “Divine Light” was nearly as intriguing as the Miles Davis and Cuban projects, but produced a whole lot less controversy.
Focusing on performance rather than remixing, Laswell helped form the band Method of Defiance in 2006. Numerous lineup changes have found Laswell on bass as the one constant.
The 2009 outing, “Nihon,” is an always-engaging collage of jazz, funk, hip-hop, rap, and outright experimental, with some of the baddest bass heard this side of Jamaaladeen Tacuma or Jaco Pastorius.
Laswell’s been in ill health of late. Usually this is where I put in a button asking you to consider subscribing or sending me a few bucks if you liked the column.
This week, if you have a few dollars, please consider sending them to Bill Laswell to help allay his medical bills. The man’s created a tremendous body of music that has made the world a vastly more interesting place.
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My introduction 'Golden Palominos, ? translating the "Hashishim texts'? ( I know that's a vague memory for what that set of work is titled:) ah and bill Laswell with Pharoah Sanders
I've been listening to his stuff on Wadada Leo Smith's albums for the past few years. Excellent!