Music producer Jon de Mello, who recorded and released five conventional Israel Kamakawiwo'ole albums before Iz's death in 1997, is ready to launch another that is revolutionary, with a controversial edge.

"We've gone formal," de Mello said in an interview last week at his Mountain Apple Company studio on Ala Moana. "Wonderful World" will debut June 26, 10 years to the day after Iz's death. "In my liner notes, I mention that Iz at one point asked me to put shoes on him. This is it."

De Mello, chief executive of Mountain Apple and the soul who has kept the Braddah Iz flame burning, has culled a dozen classic Kamakawiwo'ole favorites, retaining the iconic singer's sweet tenor tones and indelible 'ukulele strumming, for the new CD. What sets this one apart is a curtain of orchestral surround-sound, as if Kamakawiwo'ole were backed by a symphony.

De Mello feels that the "shoes" fit — aurally and emotionally — and that Kamakawiwo'ole himself would approve, were he still alive. This, after hours and hours of studio wizardry, even wee-hour "conversations" with Kamakawiwo'ole.

Understandably, de Mello is getting a bit of the jitters as the CD's release date approaches.

The new CD will arrive in a handsome double-fold package, with a 16-page liner booklet showing images of Kamakawiwo'ole and boasting lyrics. It's standard-issue Mountain Apple product — the release is on Kamakawiwo'ole's Big Boy Records label but will be distributed by Mountain Apple — with attention to detail.

GLOBAL INTEREST

At first listen, the CD is part 21st-century high-tech intel, mixed with old-school intensity. In an era of digital downloads and iTunes marketing, de Mello knows many these days buy favorite titles, not full-on CDs. But he also realizes there are still fans, like him, who want to hold, peruse and fondle a full-on CD in an actual package. Nostalgic for 12-inch vinyl discs, an album for them is a lot more than an icon on a computer screen.

All the contents in "Wonderful World" are tunes heard before, retrieved from the earlier five discs bearing a total of about 24 songs. Only the format — retrofitting the voice and uke-playing of Kamakawiwo'ole against an orchestra — is new.

The project places Kamakawiwo'ole front and center in a perceived symphony orchestra, bathed in production and precision. It's a far cry from the bareboned, simplistic, acoustic singing and strumming that has been revered the world over, particularly since his death.

The CD will have global reach. Though numbers were not revealed, "Wonderful World" will have simultaneous sales in America, throughout Europe, Asia and even South Africa.

"It's our largest product order ever, sight unseen," de Mello said.

Some specific stores will have noticeable on-site promotion, the kind reserved for first-tier acts.

"If he were alive, this would be in Iz's realm," said de Mello about the expansive, larger-than-life approach to the Kamakawiwo'ole songbook. "I felt the energy, I felt the force, and there were times I'd put down the project for a week or so. But it would restart and my thought always was to stay out of Iz's way, to embellish his sound.

"I think he would be happy, nervous, scared ... like I am now."

WONDERFUL 'WORLD' OR NOT?

The breadth and depth of the project — arranging strings and things around that magical voice and the marvelous strumming, without diluting or diminishing the essence of Iz — was a challenge. Simply put, de Mello was revisiting his father Jack de Mello's vision from the late 1950s, in giving Island music a somewhat classical spin — classical meaning a symphonic dress — to broaden its global appeal.

Whether fans will appreciate and applaud the symphonic add-ons or snub and slam the Kamakawiwo'ole project is a tad worrisome for de Mello.

Kamakawiwo'ole, who would be approaching 50 if he were still alive, did want to grow his music, de Mello said.

"He did want to expand (his sound). This creation brings Iz to the next level," de Mello said.

Clay Smith, supervising producer who handles all music for the syndicated "Entertainment Tonight" TV show, agrees.

"It was absolutely magical," said Smith, in a phone interview from Los Angeles, where he is a music-industry insider. "I was privileged to hear three cuts during a recent trip. It was amazing.

"Jon has taken Iz's music to a whole new level. I think people familiar with the music will be in for an incredible surprise, because, you know, you're going to have this feeling like Iz is right there in the room with you.

"My first thought was if this was going to come across as a gimmick, that it might not work. But I was absolutely stunned. It was vocal perfection; when the first notes came out on 'Wonderful World,' I had goosebumps. Or, how do you say it there, chicken skin?"

NOT ALONE IN IZ WORLD

In recent weeks, de Mello said, he's felt blessings from Kamakawiwo'ole.

"He has been living the experience with me," de Mello said. "We've had chats. He's rubbed my shoulders while I'm playing some of his music on the piano at home. Late one night, I was playing 'Hawai'i '78' and there were two hands on my shoulders. It stopped me cold. It was him."

When he was editing the music in his studio, he felt Kamakawiwo'ole's presence. "I could see him in the studio, smiling," de Mello said.

The centerpiece tune likely will be Kamakawiwo'ole's "take" on the Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong hit, "What a Wonderful World." It's the familiar version that was married to "Over the Rainbow" in earlier outings. As a stand-alone, with ripples of mood-setting, overture-like instrumentation, it rises to new heights and even has a spoken — albeit, in pidgin — interlude.

That's the mark of distinction in this new vision.

"I found the speech about pono (the Hawaiian word for doing it right, morality) and family; he casts way out, and reels it back in, and it characterized the way he did shows," de Mello said. "He never had a script; he never organized a playlist. Yet he would read an audience and get it mostly right."

It's that kind of risk, that kind of gut-level instinct, that kind of daring that prompted de Mello to explore the Iz-with-instrumentation excursion.

"He was always pushing me," de Mello said. " 'Go, Yoda, do something,' he'd tell me," using the "Star Wars" sage as the favored nickname for his mentor.

Two rules always prevailed, de Mello said. "One was don't alter. Iz always had to be out front.

"The other was stay out of his way. Let the orchestra punctuate and embellish Iz."

ORCHESTRATING IZ

While Kamakawiwo'ole's vocal dynamics are legendary and posed few problems on their own terms, incorporating his style so it would be in sync with orchestral arrangements was a chore of sorts.

"We had to do time base corrections because he never played to a click track," said de Mello of the common metronome tempo to which most musicians adhere. "He exists on his own time ... he drifts and he lets his music breathe."

Thus, performing to his singing, without the usual structured tempo, was a challenge.

One track, "E Ku'u Morning Dew," obtained from an outdoor concert at Miloli'i on the Big Island, also contained dogs barking and a generator humming while Kamakawiwo'ole was singing.

"We had to cut a word over a dog's bark — and 'paste' in that word we found in another verse — to create a clean sound," de Mello said.

With the orchestration, the average listener won't detect such surgery.

"Rainbow" is noticeably absent in the makeover. Then again, it continues to sell in the Iz repertoire, so it may be ruinous to fix what's not broken.

De Mello did give it the orchestral treatment but wasn't satisfied with the final result; hence, it didn't make the cut. For now.

Reach Wayne Harada at wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com.