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UCLA Preview (focus Bill Laswell)
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The Orange County Register, UCLA Preview (focus Bill Laswell) >>
A long trip to inner space
Bill Laswell's exposure to Indian music has taken him down many experimental avenues.
By MARTIN WISCKOL
The Orange County Register
The effects of psychedelic drugs are well documented, among them: heightened sensual awareness, fascination with detail and texture, non- linear thinking, and emotional intensity – sometimes to the point of feelings of ecstasy or epiphany.
So you can begin to imagine Bill Laswell's experience hearing Indian masters Ravi Shankar and Ustad Alla Rakha perform live for the first time in the early '70s – after LSD had been slipped into his drink.
"I didn't know I was tripping at the time – I was totally absorbed with the music," said Laswell, 47. "It had a very profound effect on me. ... It was a very steady pulse but with syncopation. It had a rubbery quality, with the parts interlocking in constantly shifting ways, the rhythms being stretched and compressed. It was spontaneous, improvised. It had a very trance quality."
Laswell was playing bass in R&B bands in the Midwest at the time. But as his own music emerged with its distinctive exotic, shadowy aesthetic, these same qualities were laced throughout.
Within five years of tripping to Ravi Shankar, Laswell had moved to New York City and become part of the new wave of avant-garde with Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson and John Zorn. His own projects showed the influences of Hendrix, Funkadelic, Marley, electric Miles and world music.
By the early 1980s, his sessions frequently including the best young Indian musicians – including tabla (Indian hand drums) wizard Zakir Hussain, the son of Ustad Alla Rakha and member of John Mc Laughlin's groundbreaking Shakti. The relationship between Laswell and Hussain has grown ever since.
"It's always a different experience with Zakir, and you're very aware that you're in the presence of a great improviser, a virtuoso who is very humble, very generous," Laswell said by phone from his Manhattan home. "He not only champions the tradition, but also the youth culture."
Three years ago, the two hatched Tabla Beat Science. The project, subtitled "Adventures in Electro-Acoustic Hypercussion," has roots in Indian music but is a natural progression of Laswell's plugged-in, global tapestry.
For its first Southern California appearance Saturday, the project's shifting lineup will include Indian violinist and vocalist Pandit Ganesh Iyer, Ethiopian singer Ejigayehu "Gigi" Shibabaw, drummer and tabla player Karsh Kale, plus DJ and electronics.
Hussain's percolating tabla and Laswell's low-end dub bass lines provide the foundation.
"It has a lot to do with contrast – it's exactly the same thing you hear with early jungle and drum 'n' bass," Laswell said.
On the day of the interview, Laswell had just returned from his Orange Music Sound Studios in New Jersey – a place he spends far more time than the stage. Work of the day was to remix an album by singer Lili Boniche, an Algerian icon. Another recent project was a remix of Gigi, his wife of a year. That just-released CD, "Illuminated Audio," is a seductive, pulsing, ambient effort, quite different from the CD "Gigi" from which it was drawn.
"I've been doing a great deal of remixing, which I'm really happy about. You can focus on the music. You can really get involved and intimate. It's a nice release from working with an artist – especially with working with a band. Not everybody can be right. If you're an instrumentalist, you're more interested in your playing than the overall sound."
As producer and remix artist, Laswell's willful vision can ruffle feathers – Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti was outraged at Laswell's mix of "Army Arrangement" and fans are sharply divided over his reworking of Miles Davis on "Panthalassa."
But despite the controversy and his asocial streak, Laswell is prolific in both his own projects and his work with key innovators. Besides working with the likes of Mick Jagger and Yoko Ono, he was responsible for Herbie Hancock's 1983 crossover hit "Rockit" and his latest fusion outing, "Future2Future," helped put Bootsy Collins and Pharoah Sanders back on the map, led the far-ranging Material for a decade and co-led metal-funk explorations of Praxis.
And while he restlessly, incessantly searches for fresh terrain, one constant is the model of Miles and the open- ended approach the trumpeter used for his music in the '70s.
"There weren't always set arrangements or a lot of direction given to musicians. They started playing, it was all recorded and edited later. That freedom gives the power to the musician, allows them to rise to their highest level, encourages spontaneity."
Similarly, Tabla Beat Science is not about songs but rather textures and creating an environment that promotes discovery.
"Having the space and freedom to try things is special. I'm trying to do something that's magical, rather than just make music."
Often the result is unlike anything heard before.
"Understanding is not all it's cracked up to be. I would hope people would feel it. I don't understand it any more than they do. ... For me, it's a very psychedelic experience."
Tabla Beat Science WHERE: Royce Hall, UCLA WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday NEXT: $35-$45 CALL: (310) 825-2101 ONLINE: www.uclalive.com
03/02/03
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