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Irvin Mayfield

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Irvin Mayfield

Irvin Mayfield, Jr. (born (1977-09-07)September 7, 1977)[1] is an American jazz trumpeter, organist and bandleader born and based in New Orleans, Louisiana, perhaps best known for co-founding and co-leading the Latin jazz group Los Hombres Calientes along with Bill Summers. In 2005 Mayfield 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."[2] Irvin'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. In September of 2003, Mayfield was also unanimously bestowed with the title of Cultural Ambassador for the City of New Orleans by the United States Senate and other governmental bodies.[3]

Early life

Irvin Mayfield, Jr was born on (1977-09-07)September 7, 1977 in New Orleans to Irvin Mayfield, Sr and Joyce Alsanders. His mother was a school teacher at a school in the Upper Ninth Ward. Mayfield is the youngest of 5 brothers, and has 3 half-brothers and 1 half-sister from his mother's previous marriage. Growing up, Mayfield resided in several sections of New Orleans, including the Ninth Ward. His father, a military man, was once a drill sergeant in the U.S. Army and also a boxer.

Mayfield received his first trumpet when he was in the 4th grade, asking his father for one after seeing the success a friend of his was having with girls playing the instrument. His father, having played trumpet in high school, helped prod him along initially. The first song he learned to play was 'Just A Closer Walk With Thee, the same tune he performed at the Higher Ground Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert a day before he learned his father died in the flood. Early in his public school education, Mayfield befriended fellow schoolmate Jason Marsalis. Jason is son to jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis, and is brother to fellow jazz musicians Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis and Delfeayo Marsalis. Growing up, Mayfield grew close to the entire family. Mayfield also played organ at his church sometimes.[4]

Career

File:Irvin Mayfield2.jpg
color photo of Irvin in action, courtesy Basin Street Records

Mayfield began his musical career during the latter half of the 1980s, playing with a traditional New Orleans based local street band called the Algiers Brass Band. The early work this artist did with that band was educational for the young Mayfield, providing a seminal influence he has retained throughout his career. In the late 1990s Mayfield shared an apartment in New York City with Wynton Marsalis for a brief period[5], Wynton himself already an accomplished recording artist. He was at a sticking point musically, not sure which direction to go.

In 1998, Mayfield co-found the Los Hombres Calientes band, an act which incorporated Latin rhythms with a New Orleans sound. 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] 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.[8]

As a young man Irvin 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, Mayfield decided to attend University of New Orleans instead (where Ellis ran the jazz studies department). In spite of being an educational experience for Mayfield, he left within his first year.[9]

New Orleans Jazz Orchestra

File:Irvin Mayfield3.jpg
Irvin playing trumpet, courtesy Basin Street Records

In December of 2002[10] Mayfield founded the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, of which he still serves as artistic director, a jazz ensemble that is a non-profit national organization dedicated to education in the performing arts. Proceeds from events related to the group help to fund organizational expenditures, and the ensemble works out of the Institute of Jazz at Dillard University[11]. Mayfield is bandleader, and other members have included Evan Christopher, among others. The group made their debut on March 23, 2005 at the Lincoln Center in New York City.[12]

Strange Fruit

File:Strange Fruit (Irvin Mayfield).jpg
the album "Strange Fruit", with the Dillard University choir and his New Orleans Jazz Orchestra

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 Irvin at the exhibit was President of the United Negro College Fund Michael Lomax, who encouraged Irvin to develop a way to express this American story through music. Photographs from this exhibit can be viewed at withoutsanctuary.org. 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. [13]

The composition follows the lives of three main characters named Charles, Mary Anne and Leroy. Charles is a 25 year old white man from a family of bankers, just back from college and ready to start a family. Leroy 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 Leroy. When Charles discovers what has happened while he was away at college, he beats Mary Anne and reports to the sherriff that Leroy beat and raped her. The town forms a lynch mob and the governer 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 governer, allowed the lynching to proceed anyway. The show premiered at Dillard in 2003.[14]

Other endeavors

Culural Ambassador

  • Mardis Gras

According to Mayfield, there are not as many musicians at Mardi Gras as there once was 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.[15]

  • Rebuilding New Orleans

Mayfield supports plans for a 20-acre "National Jazz Center" to be built in New Orleans, a complex that would use both public and private money for funding. 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.[16]

Institute of Jazz Culture

In the fall of 2002[17] Mayfield founded the Institute of Jazz Culture at Dillard University, having been an artist-in-residence there since 1995. The mission of the Institute is to combine several educational approaches toward jazz music, offering courses which combines 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 Bason 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.[18]

Select discography

This discography section used http://www.allmusicguide.com as a source.

Title Release date Notes Label
Los Hombres Calientes, Vol. 1 1998 Debut album Basin Street Records
Irvin Mayfield 1998 Debut as leader Basin Street Records
Live at the Blue Note 1999 Irvin Mayfield Sextet Half Note Records (Blue Note Records sub-label)
Los Hombres Calientes, Vol. 2 1999 Basin Street Records
Los Hombres Calientes, Vol. 3: New Congo 2001 Basin Street Records
How Passion Falls 2001 Basin Street Records
Los Hombres Calientes, Vol. 4: Vodou Dance 2002 Basin Street Records
Half Past Autumn Sweet 2003 Tribute to Gordon Parks by Irvin Mayfield & The Orleans Jazz Orchestra. Basin Street Records
Strange Fruit 2005 Irvin Mayfield & The Orleans Jazz Orchestra from the original 2003 performance. Basin Street Records
Los Hombres Calientes, Vol. 5: Carnival 2005 Basin Street Records

Awards

See also

References

  1. ^ Yanow, Scott (2001). Trumpet Kings: The Players Who Shaped the Sound of Jazz Trumpet. Backbeat Books. p. 250. ISBN 0879306084.
  2. ^ Pareles, Jon. "Marsalis Leads a Charge for the Cradle of Jazz". Retrieved 2005-05-27.
  3. ^ "Irvin Mayfield at allaboutjazz.com". Retrieved 2007-05-27.
  4. ^ Berry, Jason. "Irvin Mayfield Interview". Retrieved 2007-05-27.
  5. ^ "Ibid"; Berry, Jason
  6. ^ Yanow, Scott (2000). Afro-Cuban Jazz. Backbeat Books. p. 65. ISBN 087930619X.
  7. ^ "Hombres featured at last 'Jazz Notables' concert". Retrieved 2007-05-27.
  8. ^ "President Bush Celebrates Black Music Month". Retrieved 2007-05-27. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help)
  9. ^ "Ibid", Berry, Jason
  10. ^ Basin Street Records Bio. "Irvin Mayfield at Basin Street Records". Retrieved 2007-05-28.
  11. ^ "Ibid"; Hamilton, Kendra
  12. ^ "Irvin Mayfield & The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra". Retrieved 2007-05-27.
  13. ^ Smiley, Tavis. "Irvin Mayfield's 'Strange Fruit' Opus". Retrieved 2007-05-28.
  14. ^ "Ibid"; Smiley, Tavis
  15. ^ Fresh Air. "New Orleans Trumpeter Irvin Mayfield on Mardi Gras". Retrieved 2007-05-28.
  16. ^ Troeh, Eve. [http:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6270841 "Plans for New Orleans Jazz Center Stir Debate"]. Retrieved 2007-05-28. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  17. ^ "Ibid"; Basin Street Records Bio
  18. ^ Hamilton, Kendra. "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". Retrieved 2007-05-27.
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