Fear, courage, creativity, and the healing power of music. Neil Housego talks with Alabaster DePlume and discovers we need his music more than ever in these challenging times. 

'I'm scared, I'm really scared. I have a lot of fear at the moment.' It's a beautiful spring day in the locked-down UK when Alabaster DePlume calls. His delivery is considered and precise, the poetic cadence instantly recognisable from his spoken word pieces. Easy to talk with and engaging, it becomes clear that the difficulty of the global condition is weighing on him and bringing with it some additional self-reflection. 'The fear comes from life, things, and career things and everywhere. But I'm so blessed, I love everyone involved in the situation'. The cancellation of all live gigs across the globe has severely impacted our musicians. Combine this with DePlume's rapidly changing career, and uncertainty becomes the order of the day. 'Corner of the Sphere' was shortlisted for the Worldwide Awards last year, and his latest album was released by Chicago's International Anthem home to Jeff Parker, Irreversible Entanglements, Emma-Jean Thackray, Makaya McCraven amongst others. He's no longer the best-kept secret in the London live jazz scene, and with all this change comes fear. 'But I like to go towards fear. I've been enjoying talking to people about courage. The first ingredient in courage, I think, is fear. You can't make courage unless you have fear. So the next time you find yourself experiencing fear, you can say, 'Oh, good, now I've got nearly everything I need!'

DePlume's latest release 'To Cy and Lee: the Instrumentals' selects tracks from his past studio albums to create a unified piece of work that, in turn, soothes, heals, and inspires. Listening to it gives you a sense that it was developed as a tonic for times of anxiety. The music's intimacy and directness penetrate and move beyond the tropes of the genre, soul music in the most real sense. For Cy and Lee......for everybody. 'I want to bring a useful thing. For people souls'. It becomes clear that compassion, empathy, and non-wavering belief in humanity are his framework for curiosity and exploration, all engaged with, without a hint of cynicism. 'I don't have a formula. Mayakovsky says about the work of a poet, in response to books about how to write poems. The work of the poet is to find out how they write the poem. You can't be told how it is done'. The importance of the act itself, the moment in time, is therefore pivotal to DePlume's method. Jazz, in the original sense, was music to be experienced at the moment of conception. Free expression and spontaneity at the nucleus. DePlume illustrates it like this, 'There is an impetus in the piece itself. The tune will decide who it wants to come and visit. Leave the door open, and the tune will do what it wants'. This relaxation of conscious control has been a technique explored by many prominent artists, and it seems as though Deplume extracts the most profound emotions from within himself when he lets go and submits. 'I like to remind myself I am a child. And I like to remind myself that the greatest things we do are invisible to us. And the worst things we do are invisible to us. We could say something at some point and think nothing of it. But someone will change their mind about something because they overheard us saying it, and then everything will change as a result of that. We don't know the great thing, we can't know the greatest thing, the greatest thing that we will do. All we can do is focus on are where we are coming from, and is it more like love or less? I have a habit of reminding myself and engender a habit in with myself, to ask, is it more like love or less? Is there joy, a childish joy in my activity here?'.

Play encourages surprise, opens doors, no agenda necessary. 'I'm not thinking I'd better make a good piece of music so that people like me?!? Or, 'Oh my career needs a song!!' It's like when somebody invites you to their house. And you know it's a nice house, and you like them? They're good enough. But you feel like they want to get something from you………you don't want to go to their house if you feel that way. Why would the song's visit us? If it feels like we're trying to get some kind of hit single out of it!'. A fitting antidote to the slew of tiring audiobooks and YouTube videos promising life-changing strategies to change your life and garner success.

His deceptively simple melodies expand, repeat, and adapt during a tune. This exercise in iteration and exploration seems to tap into the collective subconscious. A primal mantra expressed through his saxophone. However, these songs are not merely personal, self-indulgence. The authorship includes band members, and they are most likely the essential ingredient. Collaboration and inclusivity are always at the core. It's well documented that DePlume invites a new band of musicians for every show. Maybe working with new players adds another filter to help hold back conscious control, but perhaps it's purely because he loves people, and the interaction supersedes the result. 'There is an understanding that we have when meeting strangers and discovering a chemistry between ourselves when we only met that day. And they've never heard the songs or have done anything together before. They are required to create courage and to respond to each other in an intense way that they wouldn't have done with a bit more prep. And therefore it is demanded of them. The situation demands and encourages their personality and spirit and understanding of one another. And that is another kind of magic that we get too.'

Music as a social vehicle and a way to play with others, the essential components. When I ask him whether this precludes a depth of understanding from a more established relationship, he offers, 'It's not my place to say that one is better than the other. I've been playing with Danalogue and Betamax from Soccer '96 for years. We have a subconscious language. Which is a magical, wonderful thing. I love it, but that is one beautiful thing. I absolutely love both approaches. But I happen to be engaged in this one right now', he explains.

The openness of this approach welcomes creative input from the musicians, and it becomes increasingly clear that Deplume relishes the role of mediator. 'I mean, we are talking about situations that involve people. So they are all going to be different, depending on who is there. How is it done? It all depends on who it is done with. Otherwise, you might as well invite robots. So HOW does a tune end up being a certain length depends on WHO? You know that if you run the session a certain way, then you could play many times. We could get these different little tunes and go, 'let's do this one, and let's do this one, then let's do this one. But if you play, there are some nice fun theatre games you can do. We play them before the show. You do it where you're stood in a circle. Do these funny, childish theatre games that awaken people, awaken the group to one another's input, and engage each other in listening to what each other does. So in this way, an arc could be built spontaneously, and if people are paying attention to each other, people can encourage an ending or the beginning of something', he explains. The musical equivalent of Stanislavsky's Method. And it is worth noting that connection is vital to DePlume is all his endeavours. 'There's a radio show I do once a month on Worldwide FM. I always have to look for tunes for that. One of the reasons I did that was to seek out other people's tunes to connect with different cultures'.