Photo by Chris Almeida
Alabaster DePlume
In the beginning of our interview, the jazz musician and poet Alabaster DePlume, real name Gus Fairbairn, apologized to me for not doing his homework. He’s in Denver when I call him, coming from a West Coast swing in support of his newly released album, Come With Fierce Grace, and he says he usually tries to read about the people who interview him before the interview. Alas, he did jiu jitsu instead. “I love to get a chance to find out about you,” he says in his impossibly soft Mancunian accent. “When I say you I mean ‘you’ as an individual human being.” But it’s not until he says, “I needed the jiu jitsu in my heart” that I found myself smiling through the phone.
I wasn’t surprised at his level of emotional openness. DePlume’s affect is so sweet, and so earnest, and this is his entire thing: his lyrics lean into a sort of poetic self-affirmation, and so does his saxophone playing, his entire sound, actually. His origin story is a unique one—he was working in Manchester for a charity that was taking care of adults with social and behavioral disorders when he discovered the saxophone, and decided to commit himself to music, in his late twenties. He eventually moved to London, adopted his possibly intentionally ridiculous stage name, and started working out of and performing at the Total Refreshment Centre, ground zero for a new London jazz scene.
Listening to Alabaster DePlume’s music is honestly therapeutic, and halfway through our conversation, I was getting the impression that interviewing him should also be considered therapeutic. But was I ready for a 45-minute Q&A that would with climax with him asking me, repeatedly, what I needed in my own heart before culminating in an off-the-cuff spoken word poem? No, no I was not. DePlume’s approach, to making jazz, to making poetry, to making videos, is so gentle, but its strength is obvious. It’s why artists like Justin Vernon in Bon Iver and Kendrick Lamar have sampled him—to try to get a flavor of a dude this real. His debut Minnesota performance is this Thursday at the Walker Art Center's McGuire Theater. What follows is one of the strangest, most wonderful conversations I’ve ever had with any artist.
You haven’t been to Minneapolis before, but usually on past tours of the states, you’ve played with pick up bands, using new musicians in every city. But this is more of a proper tour isn’t it?
Well I guess so. I don’t know if anything I do is proper. That’s for other people to say. You’re very kind to call it “proper.” We do what we can to be proper!
But in the past you haven’t toured with your own band.
I was over in the states last year, and I took the chance to invite local musicians to curate my bands for me. There was a sense, coming over here, that I was making myself open. And I felt compelled to make myself more open to you. When I say you, I mean the people of your country. I feel you have reached out to me, you people on this side of the Atlantic, and I felt compelled to open myself more. And in doing so, I invited local musicians of yours, who I already knew, like Jamie Branch, to curate my bands for me, so that I could connect with the local players. Not just like, Oh I need some players to play with me—who can find a drummer? No. Not like that. More like, I wanted to invite the creative voices of these people, Jamie Branch and Monique Golding, and I loved what they did. They did things with my band, choosing musicians for my band, that I never could’ve imagined for myself. That I never would have come up with. You know what it’s like when you welcome someone’s true voice, they bring something that you never could have thought of yourself.
There are some groovier, boppier beats on this album. Not like recorded beats, but with a live drummer. Did you bring a drummer along with you on this tour?
Certainly we did. We brought Donna Thompson. We brought this dangerous trio: Ruth Goller and Donna Thompson [and myself]. Powerful women. Terrifying women. Glorious. They’re London crew.
Are they Total Refreshment Centre crew?
Yes they are. It’s interesting, there’s more groove in this new album. But that’s part of the input of Tom Skinner. And that came naturally from his creative voice. These pieces of music in the album, Come With Fierce Grace, they arose between us, because of the joy that we chose in recording more composed material. These are pieces of material that insisted on existing. They were not asked for, they insisted on being. Because we were choosing the joy of our interactions between us. We’re also, since I’ve brought these players which have become a more regular group who would know my material—the more they know it, they can wield it more strongly. And we’re reaching the point, just now, just the past two nights or so, where these women in my band, they transition material into songs of mine. Say if we’re playing a certain piece of music, in a certain key, and one of those women notices, Ah, this is also the same key of one of the other pieces of music, she will lead us into another piece of music. Does that make sense? And then from that piece of music, we will be lead into another. It becomes modular. Because my players feel an agency, and they feel that they can write the setlist live as we play. And they will just lead us into different tunes.
Where were these last couple of shows when it really clicked?
Well, it clicked instantly. Every show we’ve clicked with the different audiences in their own way. And some places the audiences have come with unbelievable abundance. The singing that happened in Ojai. Oh my God. When the audience showed me the level of meaning of the material, it clicked instantly, it’s just that particular method of the players picking the tunes. Because this whole thing, my job is leadership. And I know that everyone is involved in leadership: You, speaking with me now, in a certain way, you were doing some good leadership. Your listeners, the people we’re speaking to, the readers, your audience, any one understanding these words I’m speaking, you’re also involved in leadership. And the way we do it, the way we lead, forms this world. Whether we feel that or not, or are aware of it, we are forming a meaning of what it is to be human, by the way that we lead each other. And I know that my job is leadership, but it is a sign to me that my leadership is working when my players begin to lead the show.
It seems to me from listening to your music, and reading the few interviews I was able to track down, it seems like you think about how people use music, and what music can be used for. Your previous record was born out of a sort of gamified, experimental process, where the musicians were kept from hearing their work played back, and you kind of edited everything together elaborately in post. But these rules seemed to comprise a kind of a scientific approach to finding new sounds or new patterns. Is this music that you’re playing on this record, or on this tour, different in purpose than the last time you came through the country? So what is music for?
I am so happy that you asked me about purpose. And not just because I think that needs looking at, but because I find it so helpful to look at that. Because as I say to the audiences often, I don’t know what I’m doing. If I knew what I was doing, you wouldn’t need to be here. If I already knew what we are gonna do, why would you need to be here? I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve come to find out, what we are doing. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I know why I’m doing it. And it’s like when we’re driving a car. We don’t look at the car. We look where we’re going. Don’t look at the fucking car! If you look at the car, you’re gonna crash the car. We operate the car. We move bits of it around, for sure. We consider it “the car.” The car matters. But we look where we’re going. Has the purpose changed for the new piece, for the new record, for this trip? Has it changed from that time? Surely it will have changed. Surely it will never change. But I as a human have changed. I have grown, I have faced things, I have healed. I am healing. Every time we talk about “I,” we’re talking about a different person. Every time I say “I,” it means something different. Because I grow. People don’t last. We don’t want them to last. We want them to grow. I am not who I was last year, how could I have the same purpose? But in a sense also, of course I have the same purpose.
Sure, but…
What is music for? Sorry I leave big gaps because I’m thinking. Well not thinking, I’m feeling also.
Right.
But I want to make sure that I give you something true, because I believe your question deserves truth. What is music for? There was a time when I found it sad that people would consider creative endeavor to be decoration. As if we are messing around with some kind of decoration here. There was a time when I thought that was sad. Now I consider it to be dangerous: it’s an attack. We are not fucking around here. What will save this world but empathy? How do we make empathy, but with our imagination? We imagine what it is to be that other person. Whose realm is the realm of imagination? The realm of imagination is the real of the artist. What the fuck is anyone gonna do, but an artist, to save this world? And how will we do it but with our work? How will I heal but by meeting the self who I am through being faced with myself in my work? How will I stand in front of you, whoever you are, tonight, tomorrow night, and give you not bullshit, but by facing myself and healing? The work on oneself is the work. I must be true. You are alive. You are real. You bother to exist. What could I give you but truth? And how could I bring you truth but by healing? That’s what I’m gonna say right now.
That does make sense for me. There’s this idea that’s recurred in more than one of your records, this metaphor that you’ve returned to. On this latest record somebody else is singing this line: “brazen like a baby.” The innocence of a child who maybe hasn’t been taught any better. It’s a very romantic idea. Do you think, left to their own devices, babies have a courage that hasn’t been touched yet, and maybe a courage that we need to get back in touch with?
Mmmmmm. The feeling for me, is more like that I notice that I am like a baby. There’s a music video for “Don’t Forget You’re Precious.” And in it, I’m executed by children.
Yes.
Oh my God, I loved making that. When I first saw that image, I was asking myself, Well what is it like to live? And I’m like, oh, well, right now, What do I feel like? Obviously, I feel like I am blindfolded and pretending to behave as if I can see. That was my feeling. That’s exactly what I felt like: I’m blindfolded but I’m behaving like I can see. I give up trying. What’s the opposite of sleep? Trying to sleep. The great thing wants to happen, let us allow it to happen. What is the truth of how I am? Well I am a very silly child who doesn’t know what he’s doing. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what this world is. I am silly. And vulnerable. And yet I will reach out to life. The child, maybe the actual baby, doesn’t know that it is making courage by living. But it is.
So do you think the best music, or maybe the best art, is not self-conscious? Or the artist is less conscious of him or herself while it’s being made?
Best for what?
I think like you said, you’re trying to heal, not harm, so do you think music that is more worthwhile for people to listen to, is there a positive quality to not being too worried about how it will be received or what people will think of it? Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. I’m tempted to respond a certain way, but I’m going to say, what’s good for that person is up to them. And it’s not going to be for me to say.
But what about for you?
Oh to my taste? You can have the most deep, profound experience listening to music that I would never put on. And though it was made from a very self-conscious place, it’s not for me to say. I love to make music this way because it brings me a joy. And I feel a truth in it and I feel… I don’t know anything, but I feel strongly that this is what will save Earth. But that’s just me. When I put tunes on I love to hear the sound of when something happened. I love that. But that’s not all. I do love to put tunes on that are more fabricated. Yeah, I don’t know. It depends on the situation. There’s a moment for every tune. Any one of your audience, and you yourself, making things, you make your tune, in the eternity of existence there is a moment for that tune, you know? Where that tune is perfect. Well, what’s the best music? Well, best for what? There’s incredible pieces of music that you would not want to listen to at a funeral. [laughs] You know what I mean? Or in certain settings. There’s moments where any piece of music is terrible. Best for what? [laughs]
What was it like to hear Justin Vernon sample your piece of music that you had a different intention for originally, and then to hear that repurposed? What did that feel like?
Well it was humbling to be considered by such a character. And of course, I let go of the tunes. If anyone makes things with them, it’s humbling.
Then Kendrick Lamar used the same song, or used a sample of Justin’s sample. Had you let it go, or was part of you like, maybe this song is getting away from me? Would anybody ever use a sample of yours that you wouldn’t be cool with?
Probably depends on their politics or what they’re using it to say.
Justin’s message was please don’t leave in fear, and Kendrick’s message was more, well, it wasn’t as pacifist.
True, true. What would you say he’s saying in that tune?
I don’t know. I think he’s ruminating on self-destruction or something.
Yeah. Interesting. I guess I don’t know. Yeah. I’ve let go of these things when I put them out. It’s for the listener. Half the work is done by the people listening. I mean, I feel kind of self-conscious if it’s noticeable that it’s my stuff. It’s also really cool. It’s also kind of liberating. I don’t know. It’s a very humbling thing. But I don’t feel attached to it. Or that there’s a way that it should be. They’re gonna see it the way they’re gonna see it. We have no control over how people are gonna see us. And anytime I put any effort into trying to control the way people see us, that is the very effort that is being diverted that I could be using to focus on the one thing that I can take care of, which is where am I coming from, you know?
Gus, I cannot wait to see you recreate some of this material in Minneapolis. Where are you today?
In Denver. We’re playing in Boulder at a local university. Yes, yes, it’s so good. What do you need in your heart?
What do I need in my heart?
What can we bring you? I respect that you might want to avoid the question. And if you wish to, that’s fine. But I still would love to know, what do you need in your heart?
Oh wow. My heart is so full, man. I’m a new father. Even though I’m an older fella—I’m 47—I’m a new father. I’m going to see my own father tonight. And I need to transcribe this conversation and I’ll write this afterwards. I just need to keep going. I think my heart just needs to keep going.
Fortitude. And to carry on.
To carry on. I’m not used to getting up so early, my heart isn’t used to the kind of sleep schedule I’m keeping. Do you have children yet?
No. No.
How old are you now, Gus?
I’m 42.
Okay. I know you’ve done a lot of teaching, but do you want children of your own someday?
I’ve not done teaching. I’ve done teaching assistant work, kids with social and emotional behavioral disorders. And I’ve done support work. I don’t know. The whole world of um, like normal life, like romantic relationships even, it’s a long way away from me right now. Work has taken all of that space. And the only thing I can just about manage to do that’s just for me, that brings me joy, now and then, I get to do jiu jitsu. So I don’t know how to even look at that question. In the past, I’ve answered it with funny, entertaining answers: like, do children want me, that’s the question? [laughs]
They will fuck up your jiu jitsu practice.
Or: what children? I haven’t met this child yet, how do I know if I want them or not.
Maybe that’s just my assumption then, that you learned how to be this way through being a teacher. The album that you made dedicated to the two people with learning disabilities, To Cy and Lee, I thought that maybe through that work is how you began to think about what music is for, or how music can help you, or what can music do for people. Sometimes in your songs, when you’re reciting these litanies of questions and wondering how should a person be, and wondering what art should be for, it sounds like somebody working on themselves, and that’s a message we can all think about. I thought it was coming from some kind of pedagogy or teaching, but maybe that’s the way you’ve always been. I do know that you moved from Manchester to London and started playing the saxophone only at 27, which is late in life for a lot of people to pick up a new instrument. Manchester is such a musical city, but maybe it didn’t have a big jazz scene or something. Are there parts of you from your hometown that you’ve carried through this transformation?
Everything about this is influenced by the work I did with those two men with learning difficulties and our team leader there, Maureen. She taught me everything about leadership. And the way she used my desire to make music, to get me to do the work differently with the two men. Because it was not in the job description: making music or supporting them to make musical events. But she harnessed that desire and joy within me in order to get me working in a more creative, inspired way.
So this is a new way of working that happened a few years ago?
No, no. Well I worked with those two guys with learning difficulties for 10 years. And it finished—I can’t remember. But this was before I came down to London.
So this happened in Manchester.
Yeah, yeah. That was in Manchester.
So your entire creative process is coming from this experience.
Yeah, yeah.
And then you carried that to London when you started making work at the Total Refreshment Centre. So this way of being is something you originally took from Maureen. Maureen was a teacher or a therapist?
Nope. Maureen was just a team leader. So you’ve got, let’s see, there were two men who were adults with learning disabilities, Cy and Lee. And they needed 24-hour support. There was a team of five of us to cover those 24 hours a day. One of them was the team leader, who makes the decisions, and takes care of the way that it’s being done. Her name was Maureen, and she changed my life. She inspired me completely. She changed my life absolutely. And I think about her leadership, the way she would do things, the devotion and humanity in her work—so humble, she was just a team leader of a small group. Just working for this charity. But her work was with me every day. She wouldn’t have me speaking on it in an interview about this, you know. She would say, like No, it’s about the guys. And it is: the two men, Cy and Lee, inspired me, absolutely. They faced things that I could never face just by just living. They’re incredible and so funny and so cheeky and so hilariously good and they’re with me in my work all the time as well.
Maybe, Gus, you already have children. You already have a paternal instinct. You already teach people and are learning about yourself through the teaching. Maybe that’s the trip you’re on. Sounds like it. It’s very inspiring to listen to your music, because it kind of echoes some of things that I have in my head.
Really?
Yeah, as you sing in “Don’t Forget You’re Precious,” I can remember my pin number, so why can’t I remember that I’m precious? Because sometimes when you’re making—in my case—producing interviews and stories, and sometimes, whether it’s my editors, or it’s the public at large, your work can feel overlooked, or maybe somebody is taking what you’ve written the wrong way, and you can struggle with the idea that what you’re making is worthwhile to the people you hope will engage with it.
Mmmm. Yes. And how do we know? How do we find that out?
It helps to be able to go to a theater or a space and have people singing with you. You get to meet your people, which has to feel wonderful.
Yes. But the true effects of what we do in this world, whether we’re making artistic things or not, the true effects of our actions will always be invisible to us.
Yeah.
And like I was saying before, we can only face up to where am I coming from. I made a poem about this—how did it go? Do you want a poem, quickly?
I’d love one.
It’s a pure way by With a fear inside And a sleepless sky Disappear I cried And we fear to be Dignity, I sighed And they all eyed me With a sneering eye And I used to mind You know yes There was a time I wouldn’t hide Such a sweet tender voice I would lie To be safe I would hate And deny For the sake of my side I’d create the divide And I surely still do In some way So do you It’s not pride It’s what terror can make true And decide I don’t know What becomes of the songs That I sigh In my dream Of a life But I like To be sure That I’ve seen that they’re coming That I’ve seen that they’re coming That I’ve seen that they’re coming From love.
Aw man. Thank you for that, man. That’s cool, Gus.
Thank you so much for listening.
I’ll see you at the show.
Thank you for living. It’s tricky in the first place.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
