Producer
David Kershenbaum met with Jackson about the project, first discussing it in mid-1983. and the instrumental track "Breakdown" was nominated for a
Grammy Award, the winner to be announced in late February 1984. While this was happening in late 1983, Jackson and Kershenbaum scouted potential locations for the
Body and Soul recording sessions. Their aim was to find a reverberant performance space that was not "sterile" or lifeless. Kershenbaum and Jackson found the appropriate acoustics in Manhattan's
Masonic Hall, which was next door to Vanguard Studios, and used by Vanguard for
classical recordings. The hall's reverberant acoustics were captured by a matched stereo pair of expensive
Neumann M50 microphones. Kershenbaum and Jackson set the band up to play together, with each instrument close-miked for individual focus as needed. To update Vanguard's equipment for a fully
digital recording path, Kershenbaum oversaw the assembly of a new control room in an existing office at Vanguard, with wiring to connect to the Masonic. The initial tracking of the voices and instruments was laid down on a recently developed
3M 32-channel digital recording system. Most of the basic tracks were captured with the full band performing simultaneously, but for some songs the piano or the horn section was recorded separately, to get a cleaner mix. All the vocal parts were recorded separately, with Jackson backed by himself,
Ellen Foley and Elaine Caswell; Caswell and Jackson sang as a duet on "Happy Ending". The musicians were at the Masonic for three weeks, then Jackson, Kershenbaum and Rik Pekkonen mixed the songs for a week at
Atlantic Studios, and the completed master tapes were delivered by
Bernie Grundman on 7 February 1984. Kershenbaum said that he and Jackson had intended to finish the project faster, but getting the digital gear together took extra time, and a total of five weeks for the album was "a step in the right direction" after earlier excesses. ==Artwork==