Bill Laswell

William Otis Laswell (born February 12, 1955) is an American bass guitarist, record producer, and record label owner.

He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world.

His music draws from funk, world music, jazz, dub, and ambient styles.

According to music critic Chris Brazier, "Laswell's pet concept is 'collision music' which involves bringing together musicians from wildly divergent but complementary spheres and seeing what comes out."

Although his bands may be credited under the same name and often feature the same roster of musicians, the styles and themes explored on different albums can vary dramatically.

Material began as a noisy dance music band, but later albums concentrated on hip hop, jazz, or spoken word readings by William S. Burroughs.

Most versions of the band Praxis have included guitarist Buckethead, but they have explored different permutations on albums.

Laswell got his earliest professional experience as a bass guitarist in R&B and funk bands in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan.

He saw shows that combined genres, such as Iggy and the Stooges, MC5, and Funkadelic.

He was also influenced by jazz musicians John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, and Miles Davis.

In the late 1970s Laswell moved to New York City, immersing himself in the thriving New York music scene.

He moved into producer Giorgio Gomelsky's loft and became part of a group of musicians that would become the first version of Material.

Material became the backing band for Daevid Allen and New York Gong.

The band consisted of Laswell, keyboardist Michael Beinhorn, and drummer Fred Maher.

They were usually supplemented by guitarists Cliff Cultreri or Robert Quine.

He worked with Brian Eno, Fred Frith, John Zorn, Daniel Ponce, Ginger Baker, Peter Brötzmann, Kip Hanrahan, Sonny Sharrock, and with musicians in no wave, a genre that combined avant-garde jazz, funk, and punk.

He started a recording studio with Martin Bisi and met Jean Karakos, owner of Celluloid Records.

Under the Material name Laswell became the de facto house producer for Celluloid until the label was sold in the 1980s.

He recorded music that was experimental, combining jazz, funk, pop, and R&B, by musicians such as Whitney Houston, Sonny Sharrock, Archie Shepp, Henry Threadgill, and the band Massacre with Fred Frith and Fred Maher.

His association with Celluloid allowed his first forays into "collision music", a term coined by British writer Chris May of Black Music & Jazz Review.

Recordings with the Golden Palominos and production on albums by Shango, Toure Kunda, and Fela Kuti appeared on the label.

Celluloid was an early advocate of hip hop, producing albums by Fab 5 Freddy, GrandMixer D.ST, Phase II, and Afrika Bambaataa.

The album World Destruction paired John Lydon with Afrika Bambaataa years before Aerosmith and Run–D.M.C. collaborated on their rock/hip hop version of "Walk This Way".

In 1982, Laswell released Baselines, his solo debut album.

A year later, he had a breakthrough with "Rockit", a song he co-wrote and produced for Herbie Hancock's album Future Shock.

Sly and Robbie hired him to produce their 1985 album Language Barrier and 1987 album Rhythm Killers.

He became a member of the band Last Exit in 1986 with Peter Brötzmann, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and Sonny Sharrock.

Aside from one album that Laswell cobbled together in the studio, the band was primarily a live one, showing up at gigs with no rehearsal.

The first time the four members played together was on stage at their first show.

Laswell produced albums for Sly and Robbie, Mick Jagger, PiL, Motörhead, Ramones, Stevie Salas, Iggy Pop and Yoko Ono.

Many of these bands afforded Laswell the opportunity to hire his working crew to record on more mainstream records.

Island Records founder Chris Blackwell gave him the opportunity to begin a label in 1990, thus forming Axiom Records.

In addition to albums by Material that included Sly and Robbie, William S. Burroughs, Bootsy Collins, Wayne Shorter, and Bernie Worrell, he produced and released albums by Ginger Baker, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sonny Sharrock, Nicky Skopelitis, and Umar Bin Hassan.

Among the studio-based albums, Palestinian oud and violinist Simon Shaheen recorded an album of music by Egyptian composer Mohammed Abdel Wahab.

Gambian virtuoso Foday Musa Suso recorded an album of dance music with his electric Kora, and Turkish saz master Talip Oezkan recorded an album.

Master Musicians of Jajouka recorded an album in their village in the Rif Mountains.

There were albums by Mandinka and Fulani recorded at Suso's family compound in Gambia and Gnawa music from Morocco.

Praxis featured guitarist Buckethead on Transmutation with Bootsy Collins, Bryan Mantia, Bernie Worrell, and Afrika Baby Bam from the Jungle Brothers.

He played bass guitar and co-wrote other songs on the album, leading to collaborations with Hancock through the 2000s.

He won a Grammy Award for producing Hancock's next album, Sound-System.