Multi-hyphenate entertainer Dennis White has built a career on reinvention.

Throughout his 40-year career, the Berklee College of Music graduate has fronted the pop band Charm Farm, served as music director for Inner City’s “Big Fun” world tour, served as a DJ and won the Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording for his take on Depeche Mode’s “You Move” in 2018 — and that’s only glossing over it.

Recently, White’s new act, the LATROIT House Ensemble, released its debut “Classics Vol. 1.” The band was assembled to reimagine foundational house tracks through live performance. 

The record brings together an international roster of artists across jazz, gospel, electronic, and classical traditions, including legendary bassist Ron Carter, the Soweto Gospel Choir, South African vocalist Nomvula Munnie, and UK vocalist Nick Clow. The album treats house music not as nostalgia but as a global folk tradition worthy of reinterpretation.

(Carter, incidentally, performs at Tucson’s Rialto Theatre as part of the Tucson Jazz Festival at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28.)

White — whose alias bends his two hometowns, Los Angeles and Detroit — initially questions the adjective “ambitious.” 

“That’s not a word that I’ve ever used when I’m contemplating it,” White said. “But, yes, there was a lot of ambition in that record, and a lot of intention and ambition on a mission.”

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A choir, a deadline and a ‘white’ lie

The LATROIT House Ensemble came about not organically, but out of panic.

Two years ago, White produced 2024’s “History of House” for the Soweto Gospel Choir, a record that blended classic dance tracks with South African vocal traditions. The album found an audience at KCRW.

“It did so well that, in fact, they asked if I would perform the album live at the closing of their big summer concert series called ‘Summer Nights,’” White explained.

He agreed until he jumped from fantasy to reality: the 18-member choir was in South Africa.

Music executive Jason Bentley, who made the call, didn’t flinch. Maybe White could find another vocal ensemble. White exaggerated how easy that would be. “I said, ‘Oh yeah, sure, I got an international gospel choir right in my back pocket.’ And that was a lie.”

Two days later, Bentley called back to say the show was confirmed.

White had four to six weeks to build a choir capable of singing in Zulu. After a week, White came up empty-handed.

“I found a local choir called DC Six Singers Collective that was available for the show,” White said. 

“I discovered them through an ambitious new intern who was working for me. I tried for a week to try to find a choir that could sing in Zulu. I couldn’t. I said, ‘Alright, let me make it this kid’s problem. She [Jen Jimenez] didn’t know any better.’

“Her first instinct and my last instinct were to find out who performed in the ‘The Lion King’ production in Los Angeles.” It was the DC Six Singers Collective.” 

White hired them but still needed an authentic Zulu language lead vocalist. While he was producing “History of House,” he co-founded a cultural exchange program called Orna Create. 

He co‑founded it with the Cape Town Music Festival and the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce Youth Commission.

“I discovered the South African composer and vocalist Nomvula Munnie, and she was playing in Denver prior to that for gospel churches. Without knowing each other at all, she agreed to come out here, rehearse for four days for this big show, and it worked,” White said.

Privately, Bentley told White to “now do something with this.” 

The directive became the seed of “Classics Vol. 1,” which revisits house staples including “Only Love Can Save Me,” “Beautiful People,” “Brighter Days” and “Hallelujah.” The collection — recorded in Johannesburg, South Africa; Oxfordshire, England; Miami; Detroit, New York and Los Angeles — strives to preserve house music’s cultural legacy through performance.

When he got to Inner City’s “Good Life,” he stripped it down — “no beats, no nothing.” White, instead, approached it as a piano ballad with reharmonization and different chords.

“We all know it’s a great song,” White said. “But something about recording it as a piano ballad in Zulu did something different. That inspired me to explore dance music in that way. 

“Many of the songs in the dance music canon are beautifully written songs, but that gets lost in their original function as dance music,” he said. “They have a function to serve, get people dancing, and the songs get lost in that function.”

By stripping the beats and rebuilding the arrangements from scratch, White highlights the melodic and lyrical architecture that made these tracks classics. The LATROIT House Ensemble’s interpretations draw on jazz, gospel, electronic, and classical traditions.

The album’s lead single, “Finally,” features Carter, whose six‑decade career includes anchoring Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet and performing on more than 2,200 recordings. Rather than sampling Carter, White traveled to New York in June 2026 to record his parts. 

“I want to show up for him and amplify to the world that he did this,” White said.

Ever-changing mood 

White, a 1988 Berklee College of Music graduate, started his career in dance music after being introduced to Kevin Saunderson of the Detroit techno group Inner City. From 1989 to 1990, he served as music director for Inner City’s “Big Fun” world tour. He was one of the first artists signed on KMS Records, Saunderson’s vanity label. 

As an artist, writer and producer, White has credits on over 3.5 million records sold worldwide, and seven No. 1 Billboard club chart remixes for artists such as Swedish House Mafia. As Static Revenger, he earned an ARIA double-platinum certification for “I Like That” and “Happy People.” Fatboy Slim listed “Happy People” as one of the decade’s top 10 dance music recordings.

White said the original LATROIT House Ensemble show was unlike anything he’s done.

“What happens when we perform this music is notably special because it improves everyone’s mood,” he said. 

“Whatever happened today that was [crappy], whatever we have to worry about tomorrow — everything’s on hold because we’re having this moment right now.”

White’s philosophy is simple: good music finds a way.

“The most success I’ve ever had was on songs I didn’t really push,” he said. “I just put them out, and what happened happened.”

The mission ahead

White recently received a message from Roger Taylor of Queen. Taylor had heard “History of House” and recorded a single with a youth choir from South Africa. Through mutual friends, he asked White to remix it. White did, and Taylor loved it.

“I have this new collaboration coming out with Roger Taylor from Queen,” White said. “It’s just an example of how music gets out there, and you have no idea how it’s going to return.”

With “Classics Vol. 1” now out, White’s next months are dedicated to amplifying the project for the contributing artists.

“I want to show up not only for the songwriters but the people that performed on it and took their time to do it,” he said. “We’ve done good work here. And good work tends to find its way.”