Motor City Groove

12/23/2024 12AM

Led by celebrated producer/musican Don Was, the Pan-Detroit Ensemble features top players from the Motor City's jazz and R&B scene. They will play the Palladium on Feb. 28. (photo by Gemma Corfield)

Superstar producer Don Was leads band of Detroit's best

 

By Scott Hall

 

Even if you don’t know Don Was by name, you’ve heard his work.

 

After gaining fame in the 1980s as co-founder and bassist of the quirky dance-rock band Was (Not Was) – which cracked the Top 10 with the MTV staple “Walk the Dinosaur” – he quickly became one of the most sought-after record producers in popular music, winner of six Grammy Awards including Producer of the Year.

 

In 1989 alone, Was produced both Bonnie Raitt’s Grammy Album of the Year Nick of Time and the B-52s’ hit comeback album Cosmic Thing (“Love Shack”). Over time, his resume has grown to hundreds of records from a pantheon of revered names: Bob Dylan, Elton John, Iggy Pop, Willie Nelson, Van Morrison, Wayne Shorter, Kris Kristofferson, John Mayer and, last but not least, the Rolling Stones, his clients for three decades.

 

What does a producer do, exactly? The work can involve running a soundboard, playing instruments or ordering lunch, but Was says the key is creating an environment where the musicians can tap into that mysterious creative energy all artists talk about.

 

“No one can explain it, but it's not something that comes from within. It's something that, if you're lucky, passes through you,” he says in a phone interview punctuated by deep chuckles. “So in dealing with artists in the studio, that's the first thing you gotta bear in mind: the delicate nature of the enterprise (laughs). … In many ways, the best you can do as a producer is to set up a situation that is conducive to capturing the moment that lightning strikes the studio. But you're not in control of the lightning – just make sure you’re in record when it happens. It’s a little like fishing or surfing, you know? You don't really control the rivers or the waves, but you can learn to stand up on a board and ride the wave when a good one comes in.”

 

In between big jobs, Was finds endless opportunities to pursue his love of music. As a bassist, he has recorded with many artists, played with the surviving members of the Doors at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, toured with Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir’s Wolf Bros, and recently joined in a touring tribute to the Band with Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers. He also directed and produced an award-winning documentary about Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson and won an Emmy Award for music direction on a CBS special about the Beatles. In his beloved hometown of Detroit, Michigan, he co-hosts a weekly public radio show, The Don Was Motor City Playlist.

 

And since 2012, Was has served as president of Blue Note Records, one of the most celebrated and historic labels in jazz. In that role, his mission is to preserve the legacies of legends such as Art Blakey, Herbie Hancock and Eric Dolphy – heroes of his teen years – while cultivating the careers of contemporary groundbreakers like Gregory Porter, Robert Glasper and Ambrose Akinmusire.

 

“My goal in life had really been to avoid a job, and I’d made it for 58 years!” he says. “I don't think I'd have taken the job at any other record company, but at Blue Note it was irresistible. I'd been buying the records since 1966, and I was just such a fan of the music.”

 

Was brings that same personal passion to his latest side project: leading and playing bass with the Pan-Detroit Ensemble, a nine-piece group of hometown jazz and R&B all-stars who will play the Palladium on Feb. 28. The band includes saxophonist Dave McMurray and keyboardist Luis Resto, former members of Was (Not Was). Although Was dislikes genre labels, he describes the sound as “soul jazz.”

 

So what makes the Motor City such a music city? Was points to two factors, both involving the auto industry.

 

First, for the past century, Detroit’s car factories have drawn workers from across the nation and around the world, all bringing their own cultures and mixing them together over time. Second, he says, the fortunes of all the residents, rich or poor, depend on the ups and downs of auto sales.

 

“When you have a one-industry town like Detroit was, there's no point in putting on any airs for anybody, because everyone knows that we're all in the same boat,” he says. “So you have a very unpretentious, honest population living there, and the music really reflects the mixture of the wildly divergent musical styles that ended up there and the honesty of the people.”

 

The result – which Was calls “a really richly seasoned musical jambalaya” – is decades of groundbreaking music from artists as diverse as the pop/R&B stars of the Motown and Fortune labels, bluesman John Lee Hooker, proto-punkers the MC5 and the Stooges, funk innovator George Clinton, indie rocker Jack White, and a long line of jazz stalwarts including Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Bill Henderson, Yusef Lateef, Ron Carter, Paul Chambers, Alice Coltrane and musical brothers Elvin, Hank and Thad Jones.

 

“I grew up in the middle of all of that, and so did everybody in the band,” Was says. “So we consider ourselves to be living exponents of that cultural big bang, and we view it as a mission to perform that music and spread the word about it. Ambassadors of Detroit music – that's really how I see it.”

 

But isn’t it just pop music, after all? What makes it worth a lifetime of dedication?

 

“Great music helps you make sense out of your own life and discover and/or reaffirm a sense of purpose,” Was says. “I think it’s hugely important, and I've been aware of that since I was a teenager, and I'm 72 now. Making music that's generous music – that touches people, that at the very least soothes them and at best helps them find their direction in life – that's a noble calling. And I've tried to consciously be part of making music that would mean something to people.”