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Irvin Mayfield

Irvin Mayfield, born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1977, has established himself as the next musician to embody and represent the great New Orleans jazz trumpeter legacy. Mr. Mayfield has become a fast-paced pioneer in several endeavors. Beginning with his New Orleans-styled version of a Latin jazz band, Los Hombres Calientes, which he co- founded with Bill Summers. He also leads his own band, the Irvin Mayfield Quintet. In addition to his numerous recordings, he recently founded the Institute of Jazz Culture at Dillard University and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, a non-profit institution geared toward jazz performances, education and interpretation. Irvin Mayfield was unanimously appointed in September 2003 to the post of cultural ambassador for the City of New Orleans by the United States Senate, the United State House of Representatives, the Governor's Office of the State of Louisiana, the Louisiana State Representatives, the Louisiana State Senate, the City of New Orleans, the New Orleans City Council and the New Orleans Aviation Board, establishing himself as a musician who embodies and represents the great New Orleans jazz legacy, as well as becoming an international jazz and cultural spokesperson. If all this wasn't enough, Mayfield is also the Artistic Director for Arizona's Chandler Jazz Festival, in which he plays a significant role in assisting the development of jazz audiences. His various collaborative ventures have made Mr. Mayfield a popular composer for special events, such as the New Orleans Museum of Art's (NOMA) commissioned musical tribute to the renowned African American artist, Gordon Parks. The result was a collaborative effort between Mr. Mayfield and Mr. Parks, entitled the Half Past Autumn Suite, which premiered (and later recorded with Mr. Parks, Wynton Marsalis and the Irvin Mayfield Quintet and released by Basin Street Records) in a live performance by the Irvin Mayfield Quintet during a retrospective exhibit of Mr. Parks' work, and which was organized by the Corcoran Gallery and presented at NOMA. In October of 2003 Mayfield kicked off Dillard University Institute of Jazz Culture's 2003-2004 season with the world premier of his newly commissioned composition, Strange Fruit, featuring The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and The Dillard University Concert Choir. Strange Fruit is a ninety minute, nine-movement triad chronicling the lives of an interracial couple in the 1920s and the subsequent social and political consequences they endure after their affair is discovered. Strange Fruit was inspired by the Without Sanctuary exhibit that chronicles the history of lynching in the United States.

Launched in fall 2002, the Institute of Jazz Culture (IOJC) at Dillard University has become one Mr. Mayfield's central endeavors in his efforts to strengthen jazz awareness and appreciation in and around the City of New Orleans. After being appointed as Dillard University's first Artist-in- Residence to the Department of Humanities and African World Studies, Mr. Mayfield envisioned the opportunity to help strengthen the jazz infrastructure both within the school as well as the community. Mr. Mayfield also serves as Artistic Director for the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, which he founded in December 2002 and which has already established as the most significant jazz institution in New Orleans. Recognizing the City of New Orleans' claim as the birthplace of jazz, he sought to develop a professional organization capable of performing, interpreting preserving, and educating the public about this uniquely American art form. Establishing himself as an educator, performer, composer and arranger, is only half of his various accomplishments. In addition, Mr. Mayfield's various recordings with Los Hombres Calientes and with the Irvin Mayfield Quintet have made him one of the most recorded young jazz artists of his generation. As a Basin Street Records artist, he's released nine albums, and has appeared on or produced dozens of other albums. Los Hombres Calientes, Mr. Mayfield's modern jazz collaboration with Bill Summers, is a Latin jazz group that features African rhythmical influences. The group's latest album, Volume 4: Voodoo Dance, released in March 2003, was recorded in Trinidad, Haiti, Cuba and New Orleans, and was recently nominated for a Billboard Latin Music Award. Volume Three: New Congo Square, the group's 2001 release, which was recorded in Cuba, Jamaica, Brazil, the Dominican Republic and New Orleans, on Basin Street Records, was nominated for a Grammy. In 1998 and 1999, respectively, Los Hombres Calientes: Volume One, the group's debut album and Los Hombres Calientes: Volume Two were the top selling albums at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. In 2000, Los Hombres Calientes' debut CD was awarded Billboard's Latin Music Award for Contemporary Latin Jazz Album of the Year. Mr. Mayfield has also recorded two other CDs for Basin Street Records. How Passion Falls, released in January 2001, reached the top ten of the Gavin Jazz Chart. The release features the Irvin Mayfield Quintet: Edwin Livingston (bass), Aaron Fletcher (saxophones), Jaz Sawyer (drums) and Richard Johnson (piano). In 1999, Mr. Mayfield released his self-titled debut CD of original music, with Delfeayo Marsalis producing all of his solo releases. Basin Street Records also released his recording of the NOMA commissioned suite commemorating Gordon Parks' art. A timeless collaboration with Mr. Parks, the suite was released in February 2003, featuring Wynton Marsalis, Gordon Parks and the Irvin Mayfield Quintet. Released by Blue Note's Half Note label, Mr. Mayfield recorded two additional CDs. In 2000, he released Jaz Sawyer/Irvin Mayfield 20/20: Live at the Blue Note, and The Irvin Mayfield Sextet: Live at the Blue Note in 1999, featuring Impulse recording artist Eric Reed and Atlantic recording artist Wess Anderson. Committed to strengthening the economic and cultural vitality of the City of New Orleans, Mr. Mayfield also sits on the board of directors of both the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce and the Champions Group of the New Orleans Museum of Art.

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Traditional New Orleans Jazz, Conversations with the Men Who Make the Music

by Thomas W. Jacobsen
October 24, 2011

This article, adapted by the author, appears in Chapter 5 of Traditional New Orleans Jazz, Conversations with the Men Who Make the Music by Thomas W. Jacobsen (LSU Press, 2011). Irvin Mayfield: Boy Wonder Sometimes people live long enough to fulfill the promise of their youth, and sometimes they don't. Some individuals eventually achieve their youthful dreams of success, but many certainly do not. Such is life.The following conversation, recorded on March ...

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Album Review

Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra: Strange Fruit

Read "Strange Fruit" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
December 22, 2005

If there is any justice, Irvin Mayfield's powerful cantata that lays bare the taboo of interracial love and the horrors of lynching in the Jim Crow South should assume an honored place among the celebrated masterpieces of early 21st Century music. That probably won't happen, as justice is almost as scarce today as it was then, but it should. Strange Fruit is a monumental work, as celebratory as it is somber, a deeply emotional experience whose recitation of unpleasant truths ...

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Interview

Irvin Mayfield: Hombre of Hot Music and Vital Education

by R.J. DeLuke
August 30, 2004

For a young trumpet player, New Orleans native son Irvin Mayfield is a busy man, yet in a particularly interesting way. He performs in a variety of groups, which isn't out of the ordinary for a working musician these days. But he also serves--with great pleasure, mind you--as a cultural ambassador, not only for his city, but for jazz music.Mayfield, 27, believes in the art form he learned in the Big Easy, and he isn't afraid to put ...

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Album Review

Irvin Mayfield: Half Past Autumn Suite

Read "Half Past Autumn Suite" reviewed by Steven Robinson

by Steven Robinson
April 17, 2003

Trumpeter Irvin Mayfield's Half Past Autumn Suite was commissioned by the New Orleans Museum of Art as a tribute to Gordon Parks on the occasion of the retrospective exhibition of his work. The suite was intended as a tribute to Mr. Parks, who is not just a great photographer, but also a writer, filmmaker, poet, and - as shown on this album - an able pianist.

The catalogue entry for this album states that the “the inspiration ...

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Album Review

Irvin Mayfield with Gordon Parks: Half Past Autumn Suite

Read "Half Past Autumn Suite" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
February 18, 2003

The jazz suite has grown into an art form all its own. Ellington created the form in the same way Franz Josef Haydn created the string quartet. Both men did not so much create the form by stimulating its genesis as much as bringing it to its mature actualization.

Other jazz composers have contributed to this form, most recently (and successfully) Wynton Marsalis. For present consideration: trumpeter Irvin Mayfield's third contribution to the Basin Street Records library, ...

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Album Review

Irvin Mayfield: How Passion Falls

Read "How Passion Falls" reviewed by Mike Perciaccante

by Mike Perciaccante
June 7, 2002

How Passion Falls is Mayfield's second CD on Basin Street Records and it can hold its own with all the mainstream jazz that has been released in recent memory.

The album contains ten original compositions (one track is “hidden" at the end) and deals with love and romance (what else, with a title like How Passion Falls). One of the most interesting things about this album is the song sequence. It could be called a jazz-opera because the tracks are ...

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Album Review

Irvin Mayfield: How Passion Falls

Read "How Passion Falls" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
April 1, 2001

The Jeopardy answer is: “This young hip New Orleans trumpeter has jazz chops on loan from Louis Armstrong." Your response might be: “Who is Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Nicholas Payton, or Irvin Mayfield?” Maybe it’s something they put in the juleps, because there is no shortage of trumpet talent coming out of the Crescent City. Twenty-two year old Irvin Mayfield, born the same year Wynton Marsalis launched his neo post-bop revival, seizes the opportunity to eclipse his mentor and role ...

Performance / Tour

Irvin Mayfield And The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra Kick Off 12-City Tour

Source: Carolyn McClair Public Relations
January 27, 2015

IRVIN MAYFIELD AND THE NEW ORLEANS JAZZ ORCHESTRA KICK OFF 12-CITY TOUR FEBRUARY 5-22, 2015 NEW ORLEANS, LA – Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO) hit the road for a 12-city tour beginning in jny: Miami, FL on February 5 and wrapping up in Fairfield, CT on February 22. In addition to Mayfield on trumpet, the 18-piece Orchestra includes such respected musicians as Victor Atkins on piano and Ed “Sweetbread” Petersen on saxophone. Jazz music was born ...
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Event

Aaron Neville & Branford Marsalis Added To NOJO 10 Anniversary At Carnegie Hall

Source: Carolyn McClair Public Relations
September 25, 2012

THE NEW ORLEANS JAZZ ORCHESTRA, FEATURING IRVIN MAYFIELD AND SPECIAL GUESTS AARON NEVILLE, BRANFORD MARSALIS, DEE DEE BRIDGEWATER AND OTHERS CELEBRATES 10 YEARS, ONE NIGHT AT CARNEGIE HALL OCTOBER 8, 8:00 PM This Carnegie Hall debut is part of THE NOJO 10 concert series celebrating the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra’s 10th anniversary with 10 signature Jazz events from September through December, 2012 NEW YORK, NY: New Orleans, the colorful Crescent City, is the birthplace of jazz, and 10 years ago ...
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Recording

Irvin Mayfield - A Love Letter to New Orleans (2011)

Source: Something Else!
July 13, 2011

Putting together a luxe coffee-table book honoring the city of his birth clearly got Irvin Mayfield in a nostalgic mood. Those unfamiliar with Mayfield's intriguing blend of Afro-Cuban and straight-ahead jazz with island and Mardi Gras Indian polyrhythms are the beneficiaries, as Mayfield also compiled a greatest-hits CD of his work under the same title—A Love Letter to New Orleans. The album, issued by the Crescent City's Basin Street Records, includes seven tracks highlighting his time with Los Hombres Calientes—a ...
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Interview

A Love Letter to New Orleans - An Interview with Irvin Mayfield

Source: Groove Notes
May 10, 2011

I spoke by phone today with New Orleans trumpeter and educator Irvin Mayfield about his beautiful new book, “A Love Letter To New Orleans." Mr. Mayfield talks about the beauty of being influenced by the film Mo Better Blues, musical and cultural similarities between NOLA and places like Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, and the beauty of New Orleans and the people of the city. Click below to listen to the interview, and find a link at the bottom of the page ...
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Book / Magazine

Grammy-Award Winning Jazz Musician, Irvin Mayfield Sends "A Love Letter To New Orleans"

Source: Lura Belle Productions
March 22, 2011

Deluxe multi-media coffee-table book and CD package chronicles Mayfield's artistic quest and development into one of America's most promising young jazz musicians. A Love Letter to New Orleans is also available as a CD. A Love Letter to New Orleans will be released nationally through Amazon and select retailers on April 26, 2011. A series of local book release parties will be held at the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival on March 27 at The Palm Court Jazz Café in New ...
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Award / Grant

Irvin Mayfield to be Sworn in as Newest Member of National Council on the Arts

Source: Michael Ricci
March 24, 2010

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS PRESENTS LIVE WEBCAST OF ITS 169th NATIONAL COUNCIL ON THE ARTS MEETING

Jazz musician Irvin Mayfield to be sworn in as newest member of council

Washington, D.C. - The National Council on the Arts, the advisory body of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), will meet in a public session on Friday, March 26, 2010 at 9:00am. Members of the public are invited to attend in person or log on to www.arts.gov for a ...
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Award / Grant

Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra's "Book One" Nominated for a 2010 Grammy Award

Source: Lura Belle Productions
December 14, 2009

IRVIN MAYFIELD AND THE NEW ORLEANS JAZZ ORCHESTRA'S “BOOK ONE" NOMINATED FOR A 2010 GRAMMY AWARD Debut CD features original compositions, confirming a Jazz renaissance in New Orleans! (NEW ORLEANS, LA -- The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO) is proud to announce that BOOK ONE, its latest release on World Village, has been nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for the “Best Large Jazz Ensemble". Under the artistic direction of founder Irvin Mayfield, NOJO's BOOK ONE is a contemporary and ...
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Event

Love Session, Six Nights of Music, Six Nights of Giving- Irvin Mayfield Presents the Music of Los Hombres Calientes

Source: Lura Belle Productions
August 19, 2009

CAN YOU FEEL THE LOVE NEW ORLEANS? NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA -- – Grammy nominee and Billboard Award winner Irvin Mayfield proudly announces a unique musical event that invites all New Orleanians to support their community. Coming to the Crescent City for one week only in August, will be the music of Los Hombres Calientes. Presented by Irvin Mayfield, the concert series is entitled “The Love Sessions” – Six Nights of Music and Six Nights of Giving. Beginning Tuesday evening August ...
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Recording

Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra Release New CD, "Book One"

Source: All About Jazz
April 27, 2009

IRVIN MAYFIELD AND THE NEW ORLEANS JAZZ ORCHESTRA RELEASE NEW CD, “BOOK ONE” DURING JAZZ FEST! Book One will be available at the New Orleans Jazz Fest Music Tent, LA Music Factory and Peaches Records. New Orleans -- Irvin Mayfield and The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO) announced today that they are issuing a limited local release of their new CD, Book One during The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell April 24 - May 3, 2009. ...
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Performance / Tour

Irvin Mayfield and New Orleans Jazz Orchestra Headlines Stanford's Pre-Independence Day Celebration

Source: All About Jazz
June 27, 2008

In what has become a favorite summertime tradition for more than a decade, Stanford Lively Arts presents its annual pre-Independence Day concert and picnic on Thursday, July 3. Following their 2006-07 Lively Arts performance, the 16-member New Orleans Jazz Orchestra--led by Grammy-nominated composer and trumpet virtuoso Irvin Mayfield--returns to bring the rich musical legacy of the Crescent City to Stanford's beautiful Frost Amphitheater. Due to nearby construction on campus, there will be no post-concert fireworks this year. Gates open at ...
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