Alabaster DePlume Grapples with It

The invitation read, “Down to do some jujitsu with a jazz-poet and redefine your concept of dignity?” Sure is a lot going on there, pal, but, O.K., why not?

The day arrived, and the recipient found himself at a Brazilian-jujitsu gym near Wall Street, donning, for the first time in his life, the loose-fitting martial-arts uniform known as a gi. The word “TRIAL” was written on the gi’s belt, denoting the novice’s provisional status. To the other fighters, he was the Trial Guy.

The jazz poet, already on the mat, practicing chokes from the mounted position, was Alabaster DePlume, a forty-four-year-old recording artist from Manchester, England. He plays saxophone (jazz) and speak-sings his lyrics (poet) to often-improvised accompaniment. The approach and even the sound can bring to mind Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks,” though the songs are often political (“I Was Gonna Fight Fascism”) or earnestly affirming (“Don’t Forget You’re Precious”). His real name is Angus Fairbairn, but a dozen years ago, when he was walking in London in some flamboyant clothing, he heard, from a car speeding by, a man shouting an insult at him, which sounded to his ears like “Alabaster DePlume.” It being his nature, or maybe his practice, to convert negative feelings and experiences into positive energy, as one might do with an opponent’s gambits on the mat, he adopted this as a nom de guerre—and de plume.

DePlume was in town prepping for a tour in support of his new album, “A Blade Because a Blade Is Whole.” Three years ago, he started doing jujitsu whenever he could, which was never enough. (“I come back from a tour and everyone else has new belts,” he said.) The discipline gave him clarity and solace, after some personal troubles, and it figured into some of the songs on the album.

Tall and lean, with bright eyes and a mischievous grin that recalled Peter O’Toole in one of his friskier moods, DePlume switched positions to lie on his back on the mat, beneath a partner. The instructor, Thiago, told the Trial Guy to straddle a young blue belt named Eric, who began to teach him some moves from the mount. “Are you ready to choke someone?,” DePlume called out. “Get a little strangle in! They won’t strangle themselves.” After a while, everyone switched partners, and suddenly the Trial Guy was rolling with Chad, a sweaty young man with a mouth guard. Five minutes of full-on grappling, a tangle of limbs and toil that felt a little like a fight for survival: concept of dignity redefined.

Nearby, DePlume was rolling with a bulldog of a man and whispering comments to himself with a gentleness that seemed almost carnal. “One thing at a time.” “Yes.” “What are you going to do now?” “Yes.” Afterward, he sat down on the mat and, resting his head on the Trial Guy’s shoulder, said, “If I try to do one of the things I’ve learned to do, it’s a symptom of my failure to be present.” He was talking both about making music and doing jujitsu: better to react without thinking. “When you’re rolling with someone, as soon as you’re trying to do a thing, you’re fucked. It’s like playing music. What’s the opposite of sleep? It’s trying to sleep.”

In the locker room, DePlume undressed and put on many necklaces and rings, a T-shirt reading “Sonic Liberation Front,” a kaffiyeh, and a sweeping topcoat, while he answered the other fighters’ questions about himself. On the back of his left hand, he had a tattoo of six stick figures in a row. “These are the people I have been in the past and that I have killed off, rejected, and denied,” he said. “I could tell you all about them, but I don’t wish to. I don’t need to treat them with cruelty anymore.”

He shouldered his saxophone case. Eric the blue belt, who works in real-estate finance, led the way to a café in an old bank on Exchange Place. The grapplers had coffee and talked of humility and acceptance, and of the act, as DePlume put it, of “graciously receiving” remarks and experiences, be they good or bad, as one might absorb the efforts of another fighter. “What do I mean?” DePlume paused. “Being glad.” He recited some verses of “Thank You My Pain,” a song on the album. Then he said, “I was recently having dental surgery, remembering this: it is rude to escape from your pain. The pain has made time for me.”

The Trial Guy, though loath to seem rude, noted some fresh aches: hip flexors, ribs, mat burn on the tops of his toes.

“I always tell the Trial Guy,” DePlume said, “the Trial Guy is making more courage than the rest of the room put together.” He spoke into the Trial Guy’s recording device. “To you who is listening, who is a different you from the one who sits with me, and who knows something that the you who sits with me now does not yet know: you are amazing, you are magnificent.” ♦