New York, NY (January 14, 2026)—At 73, Don Was has nothing to prove. He’s helped define the sound of modern music, producing era-shaping records for everyone from Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones to Bonnie Raitt and Willie Nelson. As president of Blue Note Records, he’s spent 14 years guiding jazz’s most revered label into a modern age. However, after decades of elevating other people’s voices, there was still one story he hadn’t told: his own.
That changed when trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard asked him to curate a Detroit-themed night for the city’s symphony orchestra series. “It wouldn’t have happened without a deadline,” Was says with a laugh. “Terence called two years before the show, and I said, ‘Of course.’ Six months out, I realized I had no band and no songs.”
Necessity became the catalyst. Was called up longtime friends—saxophonist Dave McMurray, keyboardist Luis Resto, vocalist Steffanie Christi’an, drummer Jeff Canady, trombonist Vincent Chandler and a few other Detroit heavyweights—and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble was born. What started as a one-off symphony gig turned into something much deeper.
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“When these nine people got in a room together,” he recalls, “it felt like we’d been a band for 30 years. It had that relaxed, conversational thing. Everybody was listening to everybody else. There wasn’t a weak link.” The chemistry was so undeniable that they booked a tour right after their debut show. That same energy—alive, in-the- moment—formed the heart of Groove in the Face of Adversity, released this past October by Mack Avenue Records.
The album’s title stems from a teenage moment burned into Was’ memory. Waiting in the car while his mother ran errands, he turned on the radio and stumbled onto Joe Henderson’s “Mode for Joe.” “There was a nonverbal message in that music,” Was says. “‘Don, you got to groove in the face of adversity.’ Meaning, relax, go with the flow. That idea’s guided me ever since.”
“IT’S AN ATTITUDE”
The Detroit sound, in his mind, isn’t a style; it’s an attitude. “Even when you listen to the MC5, if you solo the bass and drums—and I actually have, because I played bass with [lead guitarist] Wayne Kramer a bit—it could almost be a Motown record,” he explains. “There’s that deep R&B pocket underneath, something Mitch Ryder brought into rock ‘n’ roll. It’s not slick-sounding; not a lot of smooth jazz comes out of Detroit. The drummers dig deep. There’s kind of an honesty and a lack of pretension to the people of Detroit, and that comes through in the music.”
That honest feel—grounded, unvarnished, confident—is what the Pan-Detroit Ensemble captures. The music doesn’t chase polish; it reflects the lived experience of seasoned musicians. Groove in the Face of Adversity melds hard-swinging jazz, blues and funk, its edges intact. It’s all about collective feel, with nine players building something that could only exist in that room, on that day.
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That room was Rustbelt Studios in Royal Oak, Michigan, the workspace of veteran engineer, producer and studio equipment designer Al Sutton, who has recorded everyone from Kid Rock to Greta Van Fleet. He also builds his own outboard gear through relationships with Acme Audio and H2 Audio, re-creating classic Helios modules and Motown EQs and preamps. His signal chain reflects a deep respect for the pioneering engineers of the late ’60s and early ’70s.