Bill Laswell

[djklas]

I'd like to see some discussion on this guy. I don't know if TOT did an artist of the day on him yet, but I'd really like to know a little more about Mr. Laswell

a couple weeks ago I bought Bill Laswell "Baselines" on Rough Trade and a Material "Temporary Music" comp album.
There is a sick downtempo cut on "Baselines" called "Upright Man" and theres 2-3 Dope cuts on the Material LP!! I already had the Material EP with "Secret Life" which is good(just reissued on Tigersushi), but there is some more downtempo and just plain wierd stuff on this Material album, I don't have it with me to read off the titles but I'm really feeling this....
So does anyone have some more Bill Laswell favorites(regardless of style or tempo)?

[Fletch]

Didn't he do some work with Herbie Hancock?

[djklas]

Originally posted by einnod23:
Didn't he do some work with Herbie Hancock? Yeah,.... I'm thinking that the same place I got these LPs had a Herbie Hancock/Bill Laswell record on Celluloid, but I didn't know it and wasn't able to listen to it..

[s parris]

JAH WOBBLE INTERVIEWS BILL LASWELL

Jah Wobble : How did you get started?

Bill Laswell : I started really young.... 12, 13. I started getting interested in playing instruments, mostly because people around me were doing it. There wasn't specifically a style of music, although at the time it was rhythm & blues mostly. It wasn't like a lot of rock stuff, it was mostly people trying to play rhythm music. And everyone seemed to play drums or guitar, and there weren't a lot of people playing bass, so whoever could play those instruments would make groups and have activities. There weren't any people playing bass, so I would take a guitar and take 2 strings off and use that as a bass. And then gradually I realized that by having that I would probably get involved in more situations because nobody was doing it, everybody wanted to play drums or guitar - that's how it happened to be the bass, it wasn't like an obsession toward that instrument at the time. But then once I got into it, and I saw the function of it in that kind of music I became more and more interested in developing a kind of a feel or way of playing with drummers that was special, whereas I could hear people that weren't quite doing that right - it was pretty obvious when it wasn't working, and it was obvious when it was. And I wanted to figure out a way to listen so you'd push & pull with time, no matter how simple it is, but you get into that from the beginning, that sort of subtle science of how you build a line, a repetitive line.

JW : What were your influences at the time?

BL : Probably James Brown and stuff where the lines would stay the same in a piece - not so much rock, it was just lines starting, lines and beats. Which is no different now than what you do if you are interested in creating hip hop or dub-related stuff, it's the same principle that would go into making minimal repetitive music now. So everything else gradually happened later from that rock music and then hearing jazz people, and then one thing gradually leads to the next. From hearing jazz records I started to hear music from other cultures, like from hearing Coltrane or Pharoah or Miles Davis you'd hear tabla and African influences and Eastern influences and you started moving towards that stuff.

JW : What is the influence of repetition and loops in your music?

BL : You have to work with people who could relate to that - a lot of people were into that, so I would just be playing a bass line, people are playing beats and other things you would play with the drummer. There's no need to put 5 things in the same frequency together or things that are playing a similar phrase, so you begin to learn to decorate things so that they don't cancel each other out, which happens in all kinds of music. So you have highs and lows and mid-range and you look at it first as sound on a tone scale and then the next thing is the harmonic side of it: what works and what doesn't, which has always been trial and error and fairly intuitive - the same as the tone idea. And that applies even now to whatever it is I'm doing, it's always finding things you can fit into a picture where something doesn't cancel the other part out, because it's in a similar area. Everybody has a different way of doing that, and I think it can be really advanced without that much technical information if it's really an intuitive perception - you can do it totally improvising. But it then creates something that's very thought-out and very constructed, just based on a repertoire of experience, like how to quickly put things together. Sound though - that's in the same way that people use noise as composition - I see it like sound. It doesn't necessarily has to be a perfect configuration of chords thought out in a sequence that repeats itself exactly at the same moment every time it comes around but you create just a flow.

JW : How about texture and tonality in music - particularly composers such as Stockhausen?

BL : I was always impressed with just the sonic quality and the flow of Stockhausen's work, but it's more the music that deals with electronic sounds and not so much the vocal music from later on - more I guess from the 60s period, but yeah that was impressive. But I'm influenced by so many things - everybody is I think.

JW : What about Miles?

BL : The period for me that's interesting of Miles is the electric period and it's exactly `69 until the time that he retired which was around `75 . And the period up to that point I'm sure he was a great innovator in jazz, which I've never had much interest in - I didn't grow up with jazz, I grew up with that music. When I first really seriously started listening to him it was at the time that music was happening . And from the time before, well, sure it was a great thing for jazz and he was a great artist, but something happened around `69 that was very interesting to me. What he did, because he was in a position to of course, because he was a name in jazz, what he did was opened the door that nobody really recognized as an opening. They just thought well, here's a guy trying to sell more records because Clive Davis told him to go rock or something, or to look different and sound different and emulate Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix and we'll make more money, but it wasn't just that - that was certainly in there, but there was a lot more to it, in that he was really interested in moving out of where he was, with no respect for genres, for styles, for what jazz is supposed to represent. And what he did with records at that time I think was make an opening and people just didn't recognize the opportunities that were being presented by that, because their head was not ...they weren't able to experience something immediately like that and just jump into it and do it, because they're too conditioned from their own academic learning, their standard, their ways - what they're supposed to respect, what they're not supposed to do in order to stay within a certain framework of "jazz". So critics especially, and musicians, didn't support that, and the small following of people who did - it wasn't that many at the time - it was considered a failure I think, but it was a major breakthrough that hasn't completely broken through yet.

I was very inspired to hear the later work of John Coltrane, which would have been `65-`67, and that's going pretty far back. And in the same case I knew he was a great innovator and a great saxophonist and even a valuable thinker, but I wasn't interested in the genre he was in before `64-`65 which was very much in the tradition of jazz, but at one point he broke from that as well, in an even more extreme way that Miles - it was a different way. It wasn't using repetition, but it certainly broke the mold, it broke out of the prison that everyone was put in of notes & chords and rhythm.

But I don't think you can get beyond, I don't think you can get that far into anything by emulating someone else. I think without having your own voice and your own contribution I don't see how you can do anything but continuously xerox that contribution or shadow it in a way. But I think there are a lot of players that have their own voices & their own things to say - unfortunately because it's original you won't hear about them, because you'll only really hear about people that are emulating the people from the past, and that's what they call the "tradition", preserving the tradition of the great American art form, which is jazz. It's emulating and carrying on that tradition, which to me only means reproduction of something that's happened before.


Excerpt from an Interview done by Jah Wobble, New York, early 1999 for BBC Greater London Radio - broadcast April 1st, 1999.

[djklas]

Originally posted by s parris:
BL : Probably James Brown and stuff where the lines would stay the same in a piece - not so much rock, it was just lines starting, lines and beats. Which is no different now than what you do if you are interested in creating hip hop or dub-related stuff, it's the same principle that would go into making minimal repetitive music now. Thanks SP, Very interesting read...I have, somewhere, a Miles Davis remix 2x12" which I think may have a Bill Laswell mix, I'll have to dig it out.

[mercado]

just got the Material Temporary Music Comp Too!!
I really like "reduction"..Did carl craig sample parts of it
for Piece - "free your mind"?

yess.."secret life" is great too!!


tigersushi.com is one of 2nd my favorite internet music
stations...

graemlins/thumbsup.gif

[djklas]

Originally posted by mercado:
just got the Material Temporary Music Comp Too!!
I really like "reduction"..Did carl craig sample parts of it
for Piece - "free your mind"?

yess.."secret life" is great too!!


tigersushi.com is one of 2nd my favorite internet music
stations...

graemlins/thumbsup.gif Mercado, Is "Reduction" the first song on side B? I think this was the standout cut for me too. And the one right after it, sounds like it would go great with Eno/Byrne "Jezebel Spirit".

[jurren]

Originally posted by djklas:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by s parris:
BL : Probably James Brown and stuff where the lines would stay the same in a piece - not so much rock, it was just lines starting, lines and beats. Which is no different now than what you do if you are interested in creating hip hop or dub-related stuff, it's the same principle that would go into making minimal repetitive music now. Thanks SP, Very interesting read...I have, somewhere, a Miles Davis remix 2x12" which I think may have a Bill Laswell mix, I'll have to dig it out. </font>[/QUOTE]bill laswell did sort of a remix project on miles davis' work from the period 1969-1975 called 'panthalassa' where he mixes different tunes into eachother, very nice. i had the cd somewhere, but lost it. there was also a double vinyl released [like you mentioned] with a couple of remixes, by dj krust, or roni size if i'm not mistaken.

jurren

[djklas]

Originally posted by jurren:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by djklas:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by s parris:
BL : Probably James Brown and stuff where the lines would stay the same in a piece - not so much rock, it was just lines starting, lines and beats. Which is no different now than what you do if you are interested in creating hip hop or dub-related stuff, it's the same principle that would go into making minimal repetitive music now. Thanks SP, Very interesting read...I have, somewhere, a Miles Davis remix 2x12" which I think may have a Bill Laswell mix, I'll have to dig it out. </font>[/QUOTE]bill laswell did sort of a remix project on miles davis' work from the period 1969-1975 called 'panthalassa' where he mixes different tunes into eachother, very nice. i had the cd somewhere, but lost it. there was also a double vinyl released [like you mentioned] with a couple of remixes, by dj krust, or roni size if i'm not mistaken.

jurren </font>[/QUOTE]That's the one I have, I bought it back when I was spinning jungle. Ima dig that out when I get home.

[s parris]

http://www.2rad.net/~slothy/pfunk/bootsy/bbb.jpg

Bill Laswell with Bootsy Collins

[mercado]

yeah reduction is the first cut on side B..
cut 2 "heritage" defintiely sounds
like it would mix nicely w jezebel spirit...
then "secret life' happens which sounds like a different
band alltogether...

wow

[Jolyon]

He worked with Sly & Robbie too - Get To This, Get To That (Dub) is one of my favourite Laswell productions.

[djklas]

Originally posted by Jolyon:
He worked with Sly & Robbie too - Get To This, Get To That (Dub) is one of my favourite Laswell productions. Now you're making me trip cause I bought that with those other 2 Bill Laswell LPs and I didn't even realize that it was Bill Laswell. :eek:
I like it alot too I ended up re-editing it this weekend.

[djklas]

Originally posted by mercado:
...
then "secret life' happens which sounds like a different
band alltogether...

wow My thoughts exactly!

[s parris]

Also ... Nona Hendryx - Transformation
& Fab 5 Freddy / Beeside - Change the beat

[Jolyon]

No need for a re-edit of that dub mix! It's ****ing great as it is!

[djklas]

Originally posted by Jolyon:
No need for a re-edit of that dub mix! It's ****ing great as it is! all I did is extend a couple parts that I was especially feelin'. It is good on it's own.

[Jolyon]

Hey Klas - that Sly & Robbie track fits nicely with the Dub of "Land Of Hunger" by The Earons (sp?).

[djklas]

Originally posted by Jolyon:
Hey Klas - that Sly & Robbie track fits nicely with the Dub of "Land Of Hunger" by The Earons (sp?). http://deephousepage.com/smilies/scratchchin.gif

[Pete Nice]

Originally posted by einnod23:
Didn't he do some work with Herbie Hancock? he helped produce 'rockit'.
he did an album with sly and robbie-language barrier. this is just some strange stuff going on. very 80's sometimes over the top, but i dig it. got a copy on vinyl. lots of guest appearances.

[erd]

Originally posted by Jolyon:
Hey Klas - that Sly & Robbie track fits nicely with the Dub of "Land Of Hunger" by The Earons (sp?). That "Land Of Hunger" is tiiiight!

Peace,

Gerd

[Dj Alex]

Easy Klas,

Nice one for bringing Bill laswell up I respect him alot as well his bass playing and producing .
The are imho two interesting fusion/world music style albums he did and are great experiments that he was doing at that time .
You shoul be able to get both of these on cd as they were a limited AudioPhile vinyl release .

Material - Hallucination Engine (Axiom) 1994
check track Cucumber Slumber(Fluxus mix).

Various - manifestation Axiom collection vol 2
inc killer indian dub track Nicky Skopeletis - Tarub Dub (Wasteland Mix).

Hope you find these ! .

peace Alex . ;)

[Jolyon]

The Orb remix of 'Mantra' by Material is great - the original is on the LP you mention Alex (I think).

[ramar]

Prolific (http://www.silent-watcher.net/billlaswell/discography/) to say the least!!!!!!

I have Material's 'Memory Serves' & 'Temporary Music' LPs, 'Bustin Out' on ZE... a 12" with Ryuichi Sakamoto (Risky/Changes?), Axiom Dub with Laswell alonside Jah Wobble and a Carl Craig remix - that's on the world music tip as pointed to by Alex...

I was running an event for 9 months name of 'Materielle' smile.gif

peace
RMR

ps nice post with the interview Simon