By MORDECAI SPECKTOR
Cleaning up in the kitchen one night, I flipped on the radio to Minnesota Public Radio and listened to a story, via the BBC, about Don Was, the storied musician, producer and record label executive. As it happened, I was due to interview Was in a few days, so it was a bit of synchronicity.
And shortly after our telephone interview, the May issue of DownBeat magazine arrived at the Jewish World office, with a feature story, “Don Was: Talkin’ Blue Note at 85,” which included a lengthy interview.
So, Don Was (né Fagenson), 72, has been getting some press attention of late. And music fans won’t want to miss Don Was and The Pan-Detroit Ensemble, a jazzy and soulful group, playing two shows, 6:30 and 8:30 p.m., Tuesday, May 21, at the Dakota in downtown Minneapolis.
In late March, Don Was called the Jewish World from his home in Los Angeles. He’s been living there since 1986 but said, “I still think of myself as being from Detroit and still have a house there.”
Asked if he had any connections to Minnesota (the Jewish World is always looking for the local angle), Was replied, “Paul Westerberg,” the Minneapolis musician who was a member of The Replacements, the rough and rowdy rock band. Was produced albums for Westerberg.
I mentioned seeing The Replacements play in local clubs, and then Was asked if I was from Minneapolis. I grew up in St. Paul and moved across the river in the mid-1970s because my friends and the fun were mainly in the Mill City.
Then Was mentioned having played many times in Minneapolis — with Bob Weir, of Grateful Dead fame. Was has been playing bass for the past five or six years with Bob Weir and Wolf Bros. We got off on a Grateful Dead tangent — I’d just watched The Other One, the entertaining Bob Weir biopic, on Netflix. I recalled seeing Bob Dylan and the Dead on a double bill, in 1986, at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, where the acoustics were good for NFL football but not music.
Was agreed that any venue with “dome” in the title is not going to offer a great listening experience.
So, who’s Don Was?
Apart from producing Paul Westerberg records, Was is renowned for his work with Dylan, The Rolling Stones, John Mayer, Ringo Starr, Wayne Shorter, The B-52s and Charles Lloyd. That’s a short list.
His career as a record producer got a boost when, in 1989, he won six Grammy Awards, including album of the year, for Bonnie Raitt’s Nick of Time. He also grabbed the Grammy for producer of the year in 1994.
In the 1980s and early ’90s, Was recorded and toured with the band Was (Not Was), with partner David Was (né Weiss). “Walk the Dinosaur,” a single from the group’s 1998 album What Up, Dog?, became a global Top 40 hit, peaking at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.
And 13 years ago, Was accepted an offer to become president of Blue Note Records, the prestigious jazz label with a Jewish lineage. The label was founded in 1939 by German-Jewish immigrants Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Around 1947, Blue Note, which had been producing trad jazz and swing records, began focusing on modern jazz. Artists residing in the heavenly firmament of jazz, including Thelonious Monk, Fats Navarro, Bud Powell and Miles Davis, recorded indelible sides for Blue Note.
And Blue Note is still going strong, even putting out records on vinyl, with a roster that includes Bill Frisell, Norah Jones, Melissa Aldana, the aforementioned Charles Lloyd, Gregory Porter, Chris Botti and Joshua Redman. You can find more at bluenote.com. Was mentioned the “manifesto” drafted by the Blue Note founders, Lion and Margulis, which emphasized “the pursuit of authentic music” and allowing artists “uncompromising freedom of expression.”
As president of Blue Note, Was clings to that vision. In the recent DownBeat interview, he discusses his approach to recording, as far as not hindering artists in the studio — and trying to be in the big studio with artists, rather than being behind the glass in the control booth.
“When I’m producing a record, I’m listening more than I’m saying anything,” Was told DownBeat. “You need to be able to hear whether the music is communicating a feeling. Are the musicians weaving together or just spewing notes? Is the singer telling the story or just performing acrobatics? Being able to focus and hear what’s really going on requires conditioning and maintenance. It’s like being a pro athlete: You’ve got to stay in shape. Even in the off-season. That’s one reason I keep on playing bass and being in the studio.”
Blue Note is now under Universal Music Group and Capitol Records; and Was noted that the corporate overlords “have been extremely supportive of my performing and producing activities. They place a high premium on maintaining strong artistic instincts, which becomes an important counter-balance in an age when data analytics plays a larger role in informing creative decisions.”
I’ve been listening recently to the Dylan album Under the Red Sky, which was co-produced by Was, who also played bass on several songs. (My little grandchildren enjoy the title track. My grandson has questions about Dylan’s lyrics, which evoke Grimm’s fairy tales.) So, I asked Was if the renowned Nobel laureate offered any advice, or vice versa.
First, Was averred that he likely didn’t offer any advice to the Bard of Hibbing. Then he recalled, “One time I asked him why you can write ‘Gates of Eden’ and I can’t. He thought about it for a second and said, ‘If it gives you any consolation, I didn’t write ‘Gates of Eden’ — I remember moving the pencil across the page.’ It came from without. And he was the first person to say that kind of thing to me.”
Then Was said that he’s been privileged “to work with some of the greatest writers of the time: Brian Wilson, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Keith Richards, and they all kind of say the same thing, that the songs come through them. And it’s not just false humility. I took that quite seriously — I believe that. And it changes the way that you go fishing for songs, whether you’re the artist or you’re the producer. … It comes through you, and you learn to keep those channels open.”
Was’ new group, The Pan-Detroit Ensemble, is a band made up of renowned jazz musicians from the Motor City — artists that he’s known and played with for 40 years. Among the members are saxophonist Dave McMurray, who was Eminem’s Oscar-winning collaborator; keyboardist Luis Resto; trombonist Vincent Chandler; trumpeter John Douglas; drummer Jeff Canaday; percussionist Mahindi; guitarist Wayne Gerard; and vocalist Steffanie Christi’ann.
“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,” Was said.
I’ll be at the Dakota for one or both shows on May 21.
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Don Was and The Pan-Detroit Ensemble will play two shows, 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 21, at the Dakota, 1010 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis. For tickets, go to dakotacooks.com or call 612-332-5299.
(American Jewish World, May 2024)
