Irvin Mayfield, Jr.
(b. December 23, 1977) is an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader. He has been serving as Cultural Ambassador of the City of New Orleans and State of Louisiana since 2003. He co-founded and has co-led the Afro-Cuban jazz group Los Hombres Calientes since 1998. Their debut album won Billboard's 2000 Contemporary Latin Jazz Album of the Year. Mayfield has released ten albums since 1998, and has played at prominent Jazz Festivals during his career.
In 2002 he founded and became Artistic Director of The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO). The orchestra made its debut in September 2003 and he performed at the Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert . In July 2008 Mayfield was appointed Artistic Director of Jazz at Orchestra Hall, the jazz series of the Minnesota Orchestra.
|
IRVIN MAYFIELD TICKETS
|
Biography
thumb
Irvin Mayfield, Jr. was born on December 23, 1977 in
New Orleans,
Louisiana to Joyce Alsanders and the late Irvin Mayfield, Sr.
[1] His mother was a
school teacher at a school in the Upper
Ninth Ward. He is the youngest of five brothers, and has three half-brothers and one half-sister from his mother's previous marriage. Growing up, he resided in several sections of New Orleans, including the Seventh Ward. He played
organ at his church sometimes growing up. His father, a military man, was once a
drill sergeant in the
United States Army and also a
boxer.
[2]
He received his first
trumpet when he was in the
fourth grade, asking his father for one after seeing the success a friend of his was having with girls by playing the instrument. His father—who had played trumpet in high school—encouraged him to practice and improve as much as he could. The first song he learned to play on trumpet was "Just A Closer Walk With Thee"; he later performed this piece at the
Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert in 2005 and as part of a major work called ALL THE SAINTS commissioned by Christ Church (EPISCOPAL) Cathedral in New Orleans as a gift to the city and commemorating the historic parish's bicentennial. The standing room only premier on November 17, 2005 was hailed as the cultural re-opening of the city after hurricane Katrina, and took place three days before Mayfield learned that his father had died in the flood after
Hurricane Katrina. Early in his
public school education, Mayfield befriended fellow schoolmate
Jason Marsalis. Jason is the son of
jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis, of the famous Marsalis family.
[3]
Mayfield began his musical career during the latter half of the 1980s, playing with the Algiers Brass Band, a traditional New Orleans based street act. His early work with the band was educational for him. In the late 1990s he shared an apartment in
New York City with Wynton Marsalis for a brief period. Wynton was already an accomplished recording artist at the time.
[2]
As a young man he attended and graduated from
NOCCA, acquiring a
scholarship to the famous
Juilliard School of Music based in
New York City. Instead of accepting the scholarship, at the behest of
Ellis Marsalis, he decided to attend
University of New Orleans instead (where Ellis ran the jazz studies department).
[5]
In 1998 Mayfield helped found
Los Hombres Calientes, a
New Orleans jazz group that incorporates
Afro-Cuban jazz with
rhythm & blues. Original members include Mayfield,
Bill Summers,
Jason Marsalis,
Victor Atkins III,
David Pulphus and
Yvette-Bostic Summers. Shortly after forming, the band signed with Basin Street Records, a
New Orleans-based
jazz record label.
[6] His recording debut with Los Hombres Calientes was a success, and Mayfield gained national recognition as a result. Though the band has not released a studio album since 2005, they still remain active.
[7]
In the fall of 2002 Mayfield founded the Institute of Jazz Culture at
Dillard University, having been an artist-in-residence there since 1995.
[8] The mission of the Institute is to combine several educational approaches toward jazz music, offering courses which combine music with
politics and
culture. Affiliated with the Institute is
Dr. Michael White, holder of the Keller Chair of the Humanities at nearby
Xavier University (a fellow recording artist for the Basin Street Records label, also). Much of the inspiration for founding the Institute came from Mayfield's time spent living with Marsalis as Artistic Director of
Jazz at Lincoln Center in
New York, wondering why New Orleans did not have such a place.
[9]
In December 2002 Mayfield founded the sixteen-piece New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, of which he still serves as artistic director, a
jazz ensemble listed as a
501(c)(3) dedicated to education in the performing arts.
[11] Proceeds from events related to the group help to fund organizational expenditures, and the ensemble originally worked out of the Institute of Jazz at
Dillard University [12].
Mayfield serves as
bandleader, and other members have included
Evan Christopher, among others. As of January 2006, the new home of the orchestra has been at
Tulane University. The orchestra also has a residency program at the
New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) that includes educational workshops, performances and commissioned musical pieces for debut in
Newark, New Jersey. Currently the orchestra is performing
New Orleans: Then and Now
nationwide, featuring selections from the early years of jazz in New Orleans as well as some penned by Mayfield himself. Mayfield believes strongly that supporting the orchestra helps put the musicians of New Orleans back to work.
In July 2008, Mayfield received a one-year appointment as Artistic Director of Jazz at Orchestra Hall, the jazz series of the
Minnesota Orchestra. In this capacity, he will oversee a five-concert jazz series and participate in education programs.
Strange Fruit
thumbnail
The idea for Mayfield's "Strange Fruit", a 90-minute
opus based in 1920s Louisiana, came about on a visit to a photographic exhibit in
Atlanta called
Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography In America
in 2002. The exhibit features photographs from the book of the same name by Hilton Als and James Allen. With him was then president of
Dillard University and current head of the
United Negro College Fund Michael Lomax. Lomax encouraged him to develop a way to express this American story through music.
[13]
Photographs from this exhibit can be viewed at . The piece was commissioned by
Dillard University, and Mayfield has brought it to a number of
Historically black colleges and universities. The music combines jazz elements with
negro spirituals and
classical music. The show premiered at Dillard in 2003.
The composition follows the lives of three main characters named Charles, Mary Anne and LeRoi. Charles is a 25 year old white man from a family of bankers, just back from college and ready to start a family. LeRoi is a young black man in his early 20s from a well-to-do black family and son of a preacher, off for the summer and ready for college.
Mary Anne is a young white woman courted by Charles, but who falls in love with LeRoi. When Charles discovers what has happened while he was away at college, he beats Mary Anne and reports to the sherriff that LeRoi beat and raped her. The town forms a
lynch mob and the governor is set to attend. Feeling some remorse for what he had brought about, Charles confesses to the sherriff that he had beaten Mary Anne and that she never had been raped. The sherriff, unwilling to cancel due to the visit of the governor, allowed the lynching to proceed anyway.
Hurricane Katrina
In 2005 he joined
Wynton Marsalis and a host of other musicians at the
Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert in the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina.
New York Times jazz
critic Jon Pareles wrote in an article on the event, "The concert's most touching moment was a performance by the New Orleans trumpeter Irvin Mayfield. His father, he said, is still among the missing. He played "Just a Closer Walk with Thee," the hymn that becomes both dirge and celebration at New Orleans funerals."
[14] Mayfield's father was found dead the next day in an area near
Elysian Fields Avenue (a victim of drowning). Three months later
DNA evidence officially confirmed the identity of the body.
Venues
Jazz festivals Mayfield has performed at:
- Newport Jazz Festival
- Atlanta Jazz Festival
- Clifford Brown Jazz Festival
- French Quarter Festival
- New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
- New Orleans Mardi Gras celebrations [15]
- On June 26, 2006, in commemoration of Black Music Month
, Mayfield held a performance at the White House in Washington, D.C. with fellow musician Ronald Markham. [16]
Other endeavors
In addition to his role as Cultural Ambassador,Mayfield is the founder and director of the New Orleans Jazz Institute at the University of New Orleans, where he is also a professor. Mayfield also holds positions both at the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce and the Champions Group of the New Orleans Museum of Art. He is artist in residence at Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal) He is also the artistic director of jazz, for the Minnesota Orchestra. Mayfield also serves as Chairman of the Board of the
New Orleans Public Library Board of Directors and is a commissioner of the New Orleans Redevelopment authority, where he serves as the chairman of the marketing committee and a member of the executive committee.Mayfield is a board member of the New Orleans Police and Justice Foundation and the Vice Chairman of the First Responders fund.
Cultural Ambassador
300px —The only thing that could make New Orleans moreso of a cultural Mecca, is if the constitution was written there. But the music, the constitution of the music, was created...that's where jazz was born. Jazz is the music of America, and really jazz is the manifestation of democracy in the music.
|
Mayfield was made a Cultural Ambassador of the City of New Orleans by state and local governments in September 2003.
[17] Some of the committees and boards focused on New Orleans which Mayfield is or has been a member of are The Louisiana Rebirth Advisory Board, The
Bring New Orleans Back Commission Cultural Sub-Committee, New Orleans Public Library Board and The Hyatt New Orleans District Rebirth Advisory Board.
According to Mayfield, there are not as many musicians at
Mardi Gras as there once were in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina. People are still relocating back to the area and moving back in town, but the sense of loss is still felt very much by musicians and residents like Mayfield. Whole portions of the town that once held their own celebrations during the festival no longer exist, and the community seems fractured still.
[18]
National Jazz Center
Mayfield supports plans for a "National Jazz Center" to be built in New Orleans, a complex that would use both public and private money for funding (
Hyatt being one funder). The proposition has stirred debate among musicians and residents of New Orleans, and the price has raised some eyebrows. The idea is to create something similar to
Millennium Park in
Chicago. The plan is attracting entrepreneurial interests that reside outside of the area, which gives some local residents cause for concern.
[19]
As of
June 16,
2007, plans have all but halted concerning the proposed plan. The only company still involved in the project is Strategic Hotels & Resorts of Chicago, despite publicity events a year ago for the proposed center by
Hyatt Regency, mayor
Ray Nagin, and Governor
Kathleen Blanco. Laurence Geller, the president and
CEO of Strategic Hotels & Resorts of Chicago, says he has heard nothing from either the mayor or governor concerning the project in eight months, and states he personally believes they have not advocated for the project as promised.
There are new plans in the making formulated by Geller and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, though they are not nearly as ambitious as was first announced by the other initial players. However, even these plans remain a question mark to the people of New Orleans. Right now, the Hyatt only plans to do some repairs to its existing building. Their involvement in the project, outside of their public promotion of it in May 2006, has been muted since and leaves others involved in the project wondering if it was all done just for publicity.
[20]
Discography
Irvin Mayfield albums
Year
| Album
| Notes
| Label
|
1998
| "Irvin Mayfield"
| debut as leader
| Basin Street Records
|
1999
| "Live at the Blue Note"
| Irvin Mayfield Sextet
| Half Note Records (Blue Note Records sub-label)
|
2001
| "How Passion Falls"
| -
| Basin Street Records
|
2003
| "Half Past Autumn Suite"
| Tribute to Gordon Parks
| Basin Street Records
|
2005
| "Strange Fruit"
| Irvin Mayfield & The Orleans Jazz Orchestra from the original 2003 performance.
| Basin Street Records
|
Los Hombres Calientes
Year
| Album
| Notes
| Label
|
1998-06-30
| "Los Hombres Calientes, Vol. 1"
| group debut
| Basin Street Records
|
1999-11-09
| "Los Hombres Calientes, Vol. 2"
| -
| Basin Street Records
|
2001-04-17
| "Los Hombres Calientes, Vol. 3: New Congo Square"
| -
| Basin Street Records
|
2003-03-25
| "Los Hombres Calientes, Vol. 4: Vodou Dance"
| -
| Basin Street Records
|
2005-03-15
| "Los Hombres Calientes, Vol. 5: Carnival"
| -
| Basin Street Records
|
Awards
- 2008 - Nominated by the President of the United States to the National Endowment of the arts
- 2008 - Elysian Trumpet designated a national treasure by the President of the United States
- 2005 - Downbeat Name appeared on Critic's Poll List
- 2003 - Made a Cultural Ambassador of The City of New Orleans by the U.S. Government (Not substantiated by a search of the US Congressional record).
- 2000 - Billboard Contemporary Latin Jazz Album of the Year for the debut album Los Hombres Calientes.
See also
- List of people from New Orleans, Louisiana
References
- Trumpet Kings: The Players Who Shaped the Sound of Jazz Trumpet
- "Ibid"; Berry, Jason
- Irvin Mayfield Interview
- "Ibid"; Berry, Jason
- "Ibid", Berry, Jason
- Afro-Cuban Jazz
- Hombres featured at last ‘Jazz Notables’ concert
- "Ibid"; Basin Street Records Bio
- Dillard university and all that jazz: New Orleans-based HBCU seeks to set itself apart with creation of new jazz institute, orchestra - Faculty Club - Institute of Jazz Culture
- New Orleans:Then and Now
- Irvin Mayfield at Basin Street Records
- "Ibid"; Hamilton, Kendra
- Irvin Mayfield's 'Strange Fruit' Opus
- Marsalis Leads a Charge for the Cradle of Jazz
- "Ibid"; Basin Street Records
- President Bush Celebrates Black Music Month
- Irvin Mayfield at allaboutjazz.com
- New Orleans Trumpeter Irvin Mayfield on Mardi Gras
- Plans for New Orleans Jazz Center Stir Debate
- Grand visions for new city hall, jazz park have faded