Don Was & The Pan Detroit Ensemble

Music has always loomed large in the life of DON WAS.  Born in Detroit in 1952, he has enjoyed a multifaceted career as a musician, record producer, music director, film composer, documentary filmmaker, and radio host.

For his work as a record producer, he has won six Grammy Awards – including Album of the Year in 1989 for Bonnie Raitt’s Nick of Time and Producer of the Year in 1994.  Records that Don has produced have sold close to 100 million albums for a wide array of artists like The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, John Mayer, Ringo Starr, Wayne Shorter, The B52s, and Charles Lloyd.  In 1995, he produced and directed a documentary about the life of Brian Wilson, I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times, that won the San Francisco Film Festival’s Golden Gate Award.  As a film composer, Don won the 1994 British Academy Award (BAFTA) for Best Original Score in recognition of his work on the film Backbeat.  He also won the 2014 Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Direction for his work on the CBS television special, The Beatles: The Night That Changed America.  In 2018, Don was invited to join Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir to form the Wolf Brothers.  They continue to consistently tour the US.

In 2011, Was became President of the iconic jazz label Blue Note Records.  He fiercely protects the company’s eighty-five-year-old legacy, meticulously caretaking the revered catalog of Black American Music.  This includes maintaining the availability and quality of vinyl reissues in the Tone Poet and Classic Jazz audiophile release series.  He also signs and produces many of the label’s recent roster of artists, including Robert Glasper, Charles Lloyd, Wayne Shorter, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Gregory Porter, and Jason Moran.

Don’s deep Detroit roots keep him anchored to the city where, for the last 15 years, he has music directed and played bass in the Don Was Detroit All Star Revue concerts, which are part of Detroit’s annual diversity festival, The Concert of Colors.  From 2009-2012, Don hosted a weekly Sirius XM radio show on the Outlaw Country channel called The Motor City Hayride.  Since 2021, he has co-hosted a weekly, live radio show on Detroit’s NPR station, WDET-FM, called The Don Was Motor City Playlist.  Don is also the voice of Neville the Dog in the hit Amazon Prime Video children’s show, Pete the Cat.

Recently, the artist has unveiled his new band, dubbed Don Was & The Pan Detroit Ensemble, featuring an assemblage of jazz-leaning artists from his hometown, including longtime collaborator Dave McMurray (sax) and Luis Resto (keyboard). In conjunction with the news, the group has dropped a series of first-time tour dates slated for May and early June.

“When the opportunity came to put together a new band, the message was clear to me: go back to Detroit where I came from, be who I am, play like who I am and team up with some like-minded individuals,” says Was.

 Another Longworth-Anderson Series evening of great music, food, and drink!  Complimentary pre-concert reception features live local music, light bites from Ollie’s Trolley and N.Y.P.D. Pizza, and craft beer tastings from HighGrain Brewing Co.