Deep Detroit Groove with Don Was

News, From the Magazine, Don Was, The Pan-Detroit Ensemble

By Veronica Johnson I Feb. 3, 2026

Was honors his hometown with The Pan-Detroit Ensemble, releasing his first-ever album under his own name.
(Photo: Kory Thiebaultb)

Detroit runs deep through the veins of Don Was. For five decades, the producer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and president of Blue Note Records has been a force in music, shaping the sound of famous musicians and bands like the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt and Willie Nelson. Was also has an impressive history with Was (Not Was), the rock-pop band he co-founded in the 1980s that had hit records such as “Walk The Dinosaur” and “Spy In The House Of Love.” He’s won six Grammy Awards, including 1994 Producer of the Year. On all the records he’s written and produced, Detroit’s spirit can be heard in every note.

Now, at 73, Was once again honors his hometown with his new band The Pan-Detroit Ensemble, releasing his first-ever album under his own name. With all his accomplishments, why drop the album now?

“It’s now or never, baby,” says Was, laughing in his home studio in California, just hours before recording his weekly radio show, The Don Was Motor City Playlist on WDET, which he’s been co-hosting since 2021 with co-anchor Ann Delisi.

Released in October, his “debut” record Groove In The Face Of Adversity bears the genre-fluid binding of rock, pop, jazz, country, reggae, R&B and world music — all branches of music Was navigates with aplomb.

From Hank Williams to Curtis Mayfield, the album spans a wide range of covers that are near and dear to Was. Many of the songs were chosen spontaneously from tracks he’d played on his weekly radio show.

Like the songs on the album, The Pan-Detroit Ensemble also came about as a series of random circumstances. A few years ago, his friend, trumpeter Terence Blanchard, who is the Fred A. Erb Jazz Creative Director Chair for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s Paradise Jazz Series, asked Was to perform at the series. Was agreed, but six months before the concert he freaked out because he didn’t have a band or any songs.

“I went back to Detroit and found nine musicians who also grew up listening to WCHB and [Detroit radio personality] Electrifying Mojo, found people who played in the same bars where I played and who played with the same musicians and who spoke the same common Detroit musical language as me,” Was recalls.

Was hired some big-name musicians from Detroit like saxophonist Dave McMurray (see the feature article on page 28) — a former member of Was (Not Was) and Blue Note recording artist — and keyboardist Luis Resto, an Eminem collaborator for the last 30 years.

That first rehearsal with the band at Rust Belt Studios in Royal Oak, Michigan, was transformative, according to Was.

“Five minutes in, I knew we had something special. It sounded like Detroit,” he says. “Everyone felt the groove in the same place. It doesn’t come along too often in life that you can get, especially with nine musicians, all in a room who just click.”

The recording sessions captured the ensemble’s cohesion. Three of the six tracks were recorded live during their 2024 performance with the DSO, including a Was original, “You Asked, I Came,” featuring Blanchard, and an epic 10-minute cover of Hank Williams’ “I Ain’t Got Nothin’ But Time.”

What started as a one-off gig has evolved into an ongoing project, with the band touring Japan and the U.S. and now the album release through Mack Avenue Records — a label he says is “still Detroit at heart.”

The album’s cover features Joe’s Record Shop on Hastings Street, formerly in Detroit’s infamous Black Bottom neighborhood.

“That store represents the home of Detroit music,” Was says. “Joe Von Battle recorded John Lee Hooker, Rev. C.L. Franklin, even Aretha Franklin when she was 14.”

Today, the site is a patch of grass beside I-75. Was calls the destruction of Black Bottom as “a northern form of racism,” adding, “It’s a horrifying chapter in the history of this country that should be remembered — and Joe’s Record Store is where that memory belongs.”

The album cover is also reminiscent of Was’ upbringing in nearby Oak Park, Michigan, during the 1960s, when Detroit was culturally vibrant. Early on he was exposed to the blues of John Lee Hooker, the R&B sounds of Motown and jazz musicians like Barry Harris and Elvin Jones. At Oak Park High School, Was became the lead singer and guitarist in a Detroit rock band called the Saturns.

At age 14, he discovered jazz while running errands with his mother. She left him in the car and told him to play with the radio dial, he recalls. He landed on local jazz station WCHB, just as a song called “Mode For Joe” by Joe Henderson was playing, and he’d never heard anything like it. As the saxophonist wailed and drummer Joe Chambers swung, something shifted inside him.

“It felt like Joe Henderson was talking directly to me, telling me to groove in the face of adversity. My mood changed completely. I realized that music had the power to make sense of life: to turn chaos into clarity.”

His love affair with jazz began at that moment and lasts to this day, from collecting jazz records to seeing musicians like Miles Davis and John Coltrane perform at Cobo Hall in the ’60s. It was a natural fit when he assumed the presidency of Blue Note Records in 2011, succeeding famed president Bruce Lundvall.

Although he hadn’t produced many jazz musicians, Was has overhauled the legendary jazz imprint, signing vocalists Gregory Porter and José James in his first year with the label, following up with edgy musicians like alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, vibraphonist Joel Ross and pianist Gerald Clayton.

“I’d been collecting Blue Note records all my life,” he says. “Detroit made me understand the ethos of that company: honesty, soul and swing.”

Running Blue Note and touring with a nine-piece band might seem impossible, but Was takes inspiration from Frank Sinatra’s discipline, which keeps him grounded — and empathetic.

“Whatever you’re doing, be 100 percent present for it. Don’t regret what you did earlier or worry about what’s next. Be here now.”

The Pan-Detroit Ensemble will launch its next tour in January with four nights at Ann Arbor’s Blue Llama Jazz Club before heading nationwide.

Trombonist Vincent Chandler, a member of the group, credits Was for shaping the sound of the band and its groove-centered nature.

“He is the foundation of this band” says Chandler. “The sound starts with him. Impeccable groove, incredible musicianship. One thing that’s really exciting about his musicianship is his ability to develop music and to kind of lead the band from the bottom.

“He lays a foundation that lends itself to the utmost creativity. We get a sense of the form of things, but once the gigs start, we get to go for it, and we get to do whatever comes to our hearts. He doesn’t rein us all in. We’re all free to express ourselves, which is more of what you would get if you heard us live.”

Was remains restless, honest and grooving, keeping Detroit close wherever he goes.

“The lesson from Detroit,” he says, “is that no matter what’s thrown at you, you keep swinging.” DB