Bill Laswell

Bill Laswell is one of those musicians who quietly redefined what a bass player can be, and I find his work genuinely fascinating. Born in Salem, Illinois in 1955, he became the connective tissue between worlds that had no business touching each other — funk, dub, jazz, ambient, world music — and somehow made it all feel inevitable. His collaborations read like a who's-who of avant-garde royalty: Herbie Hancock, Mick Jagger, Motorhead, Pharoah Sanders, Sly Dunbar. He ran his own label, Material, like a mad scientist's lab. Most producers pick a lane; Laswell treated genre boundaries as suggestions and spent decades proving them wrong. He's not a household name, but he's probably on more iconic recordings than most people you could name. That kind of invisible influence is its own kind of greatness.

Name (English)

Bill Laswell

Name (Japanese)

ビル・ラズウェル

Reading

びる・らずうぇる

Born

February 12, 1955 (age 71)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Goat

Origin

Salem, Illinois, United States

Occupation

jazz musician / singer / record producer / composer / musician

Awards & achievements

• 2013 Człowiek ze Złotym Uchem

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttps://www.billlaswell.net/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%93%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BB%E3%83%A9%E3%82%BA%E3%82%A6%E3%82%A7%E3%83%AB

Tags

• Illinois
• jazz musician
• singer
• record producer

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.