DUKE LONDON: How’s it going, Don? Appreciate you taking the time.
DON WAS: Of course, I’m really glad to do it. It’s really an incredible collaboration, certainly the best stuff we’ve ever been involved in.

We do a lot of music projects but this one we’ve had circled on the calendar all year. We’re all about doing new and exciting things that also celebrate nostalgia and the past. One of our mottos is “moving forward, looking back.” So I love the Blue Note collab because we get to celebrate this insane discography and archive and history but also shine a light on amazing new artists you guys have. But let’s jump right in. Can you tell me a little bit about what attracted you to this job at Blue Note almost 10 years ago?
Well, the music kind of jumped out of the speakers at me and that’s how I was pulled into this world. I was 14 years old, in 1966, and I was driving around running errands with my mother in Detroit. I was grumpy and I didn’t want to be running errands with her. I wanted to be hanging out with my friends. And I was just being an asshole, you know. So she left me in the car with the keys and I was playing with the radio dial. I was going to the R&B station, WCHB, and on Sundays, they were playing jazz. I tuned in just as the saxophone solo was beginning on a song called “Mode For Joe” by Joe Henderson. And if you listen to the song at about 1:26, this is where it happened. His saxophone comes in and he’s not playing notes or anything, there are just these anguished cries emitting from his sax. And it captured my mood, it was exactly how I felt, you know, being stuck with my mom all day. But as soon as the solo gets about 20 seconds in, the drummer Joe chambers comes in and starts grooving. And Joe Henderson’s sax kind of falls into place. And there’s a message that came through, which was to groove in the face of adversity. It actually calmed me down, listening to the music. And I got the point, I got a verbal message from this nonverbal music. And when my mom got back in the car, I was a nicer kid. And I was in a good mood.

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