"Cool Rhythm" Now Available!

Family AnD, my brothers and Sisters!! : )

Alivenotdead.com is now selling "Cool Rhythm"  through the online store!This is it -  "Cool Rhythm"!! I have, after many years away from music, decided to revisit that which brings us all such identification, Joy, Love,  peace, happiness, inspiration ,etc.It was a real pleasure to have the lovely Ms. Kelly Chan on "Quando" and my Brother from another Mother, Mr. Kenny B on "Imagine".Hong Kong has a pool of great professional  musicians and a lot of them played there hearts out for this project, and I honor them for sharing themselves with "Cool Rhythm". We also had members of "The Hong Kong Philharmonic" who layed down a beautiful bed of strings  on five of the songs which gave it that full classic sound that these arrangements deserve,I'm so proud to say that "Cool Rhythm" was "Made in Hong Kong"!!I hope you will all enjoy this entrance back into the music world and join me in paying tribute to all the great musicians who graced "Cool Rhythm" with there artistry.With love,Michael.I now turn it over , a few words from our Master of sound, Rob Porter:

The big band was conigured on the stage as a conventional ensemble, which included an extra eleven piece string section on the irst day. A matched stereo pair of valve microphones was carefully positioned to give me the essential backbone of the recording. Simultaneously I captured the instruments with a full complement of spot microphones. Each mic was wired directly to the preamp and AD converter without equalization or compression. Staying in tune was easy for the players because they were playing in a fully acoustic environment with no headphones or foldback monitors to confuse them. Each song was performed live, including all of the solos, no more than six times. The best takes were chosen and edited together to yield the master version of each song. Michael’s voice was then recorded through a classic signal chain beginning with a Rode NT-1 valve microphone feeding a Class-A mic preamp (a Neve 1073 hand built by Shep Associates), followed by an Anthony Demaria 1000 valve leveling ampliier (custom version of the venerable LA-2A). 

From the irst moment of recording through the last stage of the mixing process, I have vigorously applied the irst law of recording… Less is More!  Some of the songs have been delivered in their purest form with almost nothing but the stereo pair and the vocal track revealing the soundstaging with a simple clarity. In the case of the more modern songs, I chose to apply more signal from the spot microphones in the inal balance. This collection of wonderful songs has the excitement and energy for everyone that loves music, matched with the quality and idelity worthy of playback on a truly great reproduction system.