“I guess it comes from… I don’t KNOW where! Somehow I sit down and play. Memories come back and I create them as music… from the memory down to the fingers, and they play it! When the original stuff started to come alive, there was a whole other side that I really didn’t know I had, waiting there to have its moment. It was waiting to come out and say, ‘Hey, Alec, here’s something you already know and here’s something new you can learn.’ It took all that time to come alive. Yeah, I guess it’s just something I can do now.”
— Alec Sweazy
Alec’s debut solo piano and accordion album, ALECTRICITY, features five original piano compositions, six classical piano works, and three jazzy accordion pieces. Click here to listen on Apple Music, and click here to purchase on Amazon.
1 Journey by Alec Sweazy
2 Seconds to Spare by Alec Sweazy
3 What a Furry Wonder by Alec Sweazy
4 I’m Still Standing by Alec Sweazy
5 Long Time Coming by Alec Sweazy
6 Prelude in C-sharp Minor, Op. 3, No. 2, by Sergei Rachmaninoff
7 La soirée dans Grenade (The Evening in Granada), from Estampes, L. 100:2, by Claude Debussy
8 Von fremden Ländern und Menshen (Of Foreign Lands and Peoples), from Kinderscenen (Scenes from Childhood), Op. 15, No. 1, by Robert Schumann
9 Prelude in B minor by J. S. Bach, arranged by Alexander Siloti
10 Notturno, from Lyric Pieces, Op. 54, No. 4, by Edvard Grieg
11 Suite, Op. 14, No. 3, by Béla Bartók
12 Indifference by Joseph Columbo & Tony Murena, arranged for accordion by Gary Dahl
13 Lisa by Frank Marocco
14 Satin Doll by “Duke” Ellington with Billy Strayhorn, arranged for accordion by Larry Malmberg
Recorded on the Steinway ‘B’ at Wild Sound Recording Studio, Minneapolis, MN
Alec began composing at the age of 14, shortly after the loss of his grandmother, Dorothy Sweazy. One day he just sat down at the piano and played the most beautiful, tearful piece, never heard before. He was composing as he was playing, completely unrehearsed and without hesitation. Over the years, Alec has composed many spontaneous piano pieces; but the five original pieces on this album are the first to be captured in the studio.
Alec describes his thoughts at the time:
Journey — “Just how far I’ve come… like travelling in a car through my life… playing piano for the entire school for the Variety Show in junior high… graduating from high school….”
Seconds to Spare — “I open the door and look up the stairs and there is smoke everywhere. I can see the orange glow coming from the stove, so I just get out of there as quickly as I can… no time to get anything. Then being outside, I start to realize what just happened… how quickly things can go from nothing to something so dangerous.”
What a Furry Wonder — “For nearly seven months… trying to get through the loss and not knowing when or if another dog was going to be in the family or not. Then I hear we are getting a puppy… it’s Buda’s first day at home, bounding all around the living room with his long legs…. The joy is back!”
I’m Still Standing — “As a student in elementary school… being treated like a scab… other students picking on me and beating me up. It hurt a lot. I tried to let people know of the threats, calling me names, pushing me down stairs. It was like having monsters with laser beams for eyes coming after me, destroying me from the inside out.”
Long Time Coming — “This project. To have goals for yourself in life… and the CD is probably the biggest thing I’ve done in my whole life. I’m pretty sure I haven’t done anything that takes so much patience, doing things over and over again. To keep it moving takes many steps. Many people are needed to get a big project like this off the ground. Who would have thought, after the variety shows in junior high school, that this is where I would be now?”
ALEC SWEAZY 