We recently connected with Matthew Alec and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Matthew, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.
Imposter syndrome. Yeah, that’s been a thing that I’ve dealt with since I was just a kid starting in music. I wasn’t familiar with what it was in my 20s, but I suffered from its effects all the same. To be completely honest I’ve never truly overcome it. It’s continued to be an obstacle for me to this day. That said, I have learned to recognize it and I have learned to lessen its effects on me in recent years.
My best advise to other musicians and performers out there is to be as prepared as you possibly can be for every rehearsal and every performance. The more prepared you are, the less anxiety you will have and the more confident you will be. Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix that solves something like self-doubt, but recognizing its existence and working a little each day on growing your craft will gradually grow your self-confidence and lesson its effects. It’s worked that way for me. Some part of it comes with age and experience as well. The older you get the more comfortable you become with yourself.
Personally, I think some part of me will always doubt myself as a musician and as a performer. There is some good that comes from this, however. It’s a major driving force for me to want to work harder and continue to grow as a saxophonist and all-around musician. Think positively, work as hard as you’re able, and continue to grow your craft and yourself as an all-around human being. My first tattoo artist told me, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” A career in music certainly wasn’t, either. Have faith and keep going.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Where do I begin? Haha. So, I’ve been a sax player for around 30 years now and I’ve been performing for roughly 20. I went to school for music at Kent State University in Ohio and graduated from there about 15 years ago. Out of Kent, I was a founding member the the soul-rock group Winslow. That group put out a couple of studio records and collaborated with some very big names including Bernie Worrell from Parliament/Funkadelic and Edwin “Tony” Nicholas, the longtime producer for Gerald Levert. That group broke up due to personnel reasons and I spent a few years doing the freelance horn player for hire thing around Cleveland and Akron. Somewhere around 2017, I started my own jazz fusion act called Matthew Alec and The Soul Electric. That group put out its first studio record called “Cleveland Time” in 2020 which featured former Saturday Night Live musical director and Blues Brothers bandsman Tom “Bones” Malone. I’m really proud of that record, it’s not perfect, but it pretty much turned out exactly as I had envisioned it. We made the jazz radio charts with that record and we were featured in a number of major publications including Jazziz Magazine, SoulTracks.com, Broadway World, All About Jazz, and a bunch of others.
That record also marked the inception of my record label, Cleveland Time Records. It’s been a slow going process, but with the label my plan is to record talented Northeast Ohio jazz and jazz-related artists and promote the releases internationally. In addition to actually making records, I also want to produce jazz education content. My interviews with Tom “Bones” Malone and jazz legend Joe Lovano are the first of those endeavors. Both are absolutely fantastic interviews. Readers can check them out on the Cleveland Time Records’ YouTube channel.
Since the “Cleveland Time” release, Tom “Bones” Malone very generously agreed to fly to Cleveland and perform with my group and I at Cleveland’s Bop Stop jazz club earlier last year. I had audio and video recorded from that performance and my group’s second album “Live from the Bop Stop!” was released at the end of 2022. That album also garnered quite a bit of radio play around the U.S. and Canada. I’ll be releasing a second live album in October that was recorded by my group in 2018 while I’m working hard with my group on the second studio album, which I am very, very excited about. Lots of great original music in store on that one. Viewers can look for its release in 2024.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Well, there’s the obvious one. That’s my skill on the saxophone itself. For any other performing or creative artists out there, that’s your craft. Whatever your craft is, you have to be good at it. You have to work at it all the time and not just the stuff that you feel like working on or the stuff that you are already good at… you have to work on the things that you’re not as good at and you have to do it all the time for many years. That’s how you get really good at something. There’s no shortcut for hard work.
There are a few other general rules that the creative types don’t always seem to get right. Be professional. That means be on time to rehearsals, be on time to performances, and be over-prepared for the material that you have to perform. Secondly, look the part! Look nice at rehearsals and dress to impress at performances in keeping with whatever the individual show calls for. Also, and this is absolutely crucial, do not cause drama of any kind. Believe it or not, if you’re performing music you should be treating it as your job. Act professionally at all times.
Beyond that, there are a few skills that I’ve learned over the years that have helped to set me apart from some of my peers. First, organization. Be organized. Keep a planner and use it. Write all of your dates in it and don’t mix them up. Keep a spreadsheet of your expenses. Learn to use Excel. Grow your online presence. Have a website and keep it up to date, have all the major social media platforms and post on them regularly. Keep your posts professional at all times. A publicist can help with this if need be. Check your Google search results every so often and see how you’re doing. Remember that anyone who doesn’t know you will use Google to find out about you if they catch wind of your craft and want to know more. What Google shows them will shape their opinion of you.
All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
The biggest obstacle that I’ve been dealing with lately has been a general lack of time to get to all of the various things that I need to do. Having money is great and it’s absolutely helpful, but time is the greatest commodity. The more you get involved in, the less time you will have. As a saxophonist, I would very much like to spend three to four hours daily working on my craft, but as a hard reality, I typically get anywhere from around 45 minutes to an hour daily to practice the instrument. That’s enough to get some things accomplished, but it’s almost never enough to get to everything that I need to.
I’m currently working on the second studio album and it’s been a very difficult struggle to try to find the time to work on it with everything that I have going on. I’m hopeful that I can have all of the writing done by the end of July. We shall see if I’m able to do that. The best advise I can give is to tell readers to work a little bit every day towards what you need to accomplish. It may take longer than you initially expect, but you will complete it in time as long as you keep working.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.matthewalec.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/matthewalecmusic
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/matthewalecmusic
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/matthewalecjazz
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/c/matthewalec
- SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/matthewalecmusic
- Other: www.clevelandtime.org
Image Credits
Gabe Fedor and Chris Kurka
