Michael Ray Tyler - Cool Breeze (2009)

Cool Breeze was my very first Big Band composition and Dejavu was my first Big Band arrangement. I was only 17 years old and still attending high school. All of the other tunes were written while attending college at the University of Kansas, 1983-1992. I never thought I’d be recording these tunes over 20 years later. My, how time really flies right by. What a journey and a great challenge pulling this project off. A big thanks to technology that allows musicians and songwriters like myself to multi-track one part at a time in order to build something from nothing. I multi-tracked all four trumpets, trombones, drums, keyboards and percussion parts while Dan Philippus multi-tracked all five saxophone parts: Alto 1 & 2, Tenor Sax 1 & 2, and Baritone Saxophone, with the exception of “Cool Breeze,” which was multi-tracked by saxophonist, Tom Hall. I take my hat off to both of these guys and all of the other musicians for hanging in there with me. It was a lot of work. But the result one achieves is a tight, harmonious sound along with consistency in phrasing amongst all parts. A live band of 18 musicians or more would have to rehearse immensely and frequently to achieve this kind of production which is quite difficult in today’s working world. “Cool Breeze” was one of three projects which I started simultaneously over five years ago. It is the third and final project which concludes the three genre quest that has taken a total of seven years to complete. The other two projects “Grazing The Land”, smooth jazz genre and “Fire & Desire”, pop vocal genre, were finished and released in 2008. My dream is to perform live with any of these projects anywhere in the world. I hope that my fans will experience all three genres in order to see what I am really capable of and to witness my full talent and gift for music. And I persistently did it over years of time, out of a tiny bedroom I call my studio. Enjoy