[Dixielandjazz] NEW ORLEANS JAZZ AS DEFINED BY TRUMPETER IRVIN MAYFIELD

[Stephen Barbone]

Is this the "New" New Orleans Jazz? Provocative perspective via the NY
Times and Irwin Mayfield, an example of the new breed of New Orleans
trumpeters.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone

October 29, 2003 - New York Times

Taking Jazz Into Strange (90 Minute) Territory

By STEPHEN KINZER

NEW ORLEANS — Like many other young lions of New Orleans jazz, the
trumpeter Irvin Mayfield began playing in public before he was even in
his teens. As he matured, he developed both a polished trumpet style and
a wide-ranging musical imagination. In recent years he has caught the
attention of the wider world with tours and recordings, some with his
modern-jazz sextet and others with his acclaimed Latin-based band, Los
Hombres Calientes.

This month Mr. Mayfield ventured into new musical territory, conducting
a jazz orchestra in the premiere of "Strange Fruit," his 90-minute
chorale about lynching in the Old South.

Without abandoning any of the projects that have propelled him to
precocious stardom, Mr. Mayfield has taken an unusual turn toward
academia. Last year he became the first director of the Institute of
Jazz Culture at Dillard University here, and artistic director of the
newly formed New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, which will be at the
institute's core.

Mr. Mayfield's "Strange Fruit," which was presented twice this month to
packed houses at Dillard's main auditorium, was the first major
production mounted by the institute.

It was inspired by the chilling song of the same name made famous in
1939 by Billie Holiday, but it takes off in very different musical and
narrative directions. In three sections separated by narration and
taking up 500 pages of musical notation, it tells the fictional story of
a young black man who begins an affair with a white woman and is lynched
after his father preaches a fiery sermon to the gathered mob. Despite
the ugliness of its theme, the music to this new "Strange Fruit" has
only a few sad interludes. It is full of swirling, heavily orchestrated
crescendos and passages that swing with life. Mr. Mayfield said it
reflected influences as diverse as Tchaikovsky, Duke Ellington and
Ornette Coleman.

The performance was another chapter in Mr. Mayfield's development from
child prodigy — he began playing the trumpet at 9 — to one of this
city's most ambitious musical entrepreneurs. He is a protégé of Wynton
Marsalis, the jazz polymath who is artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln
Center. Each is now seeking to create a large, stable orchestra that
will play jazz at a high level, encouraging musicianship while building
larger audiences.

"Wynton and I laugh about this because I tell him he's a fish out of
water in New York," Mr. Mayfield said. "There's a different vibration in
New Orleans. We have a much more down-home feel. People here really know
how to relate to jazz."

Mr. Mayfield is part of an informal movement inspired by Mr. Marsalis,
the trumpeter Terence Blanchard, the saxophonist Joshua Redman and
others who have defined jazz in ways that some consider too narrow.
Their insistence on formal precision, mirrored in their sharp outfits,
contrasted with the introspective, improvisational style of the bebop
generation.

Some in New Orleans consider Mr. Mayfield and his compatriots to have
been, at least in earlier stages of their careers, insufficiently
respectful of the prewar jazz that is still widely revered and played
here.

"Critics who say that don't realize that what makes New Orleans jazz is
simply that it's from New Orleans," Mr. Mayfield said. "People want to
figure out what kind of box I belong in. They say, `Oh, he does modern
jazz.' But in my mind, it's all connected. With all the things I have
going, it's tough to strike a balance; I'm not going to lie about that.
But you don't have to forsake one thing in order to do another."

Even before embracing his new posts as director of the Institute for
Jazz Culture and leader of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Mr. Mayfield
headed a sprawling musical empire. Early in his career, he was inspired
by the sleek lines of players like Mr. Marsalis and Nicholas Payton.
Later he began traveling the world and absorbing African, Caribbean and
South American rhythms.

He has made more than a dozen recordings, including several hits with
Los Hombres Calientes, a group he leads along with the percussionist
Bill Summers. In recent years he has taught classical and jazz trumpet
at several universities, composed and arranged music for the Louisiana
Philharmonic Orchestra and served as artistic director of a jazz
festival in Chandler, Ariz. Backed by a group of local investors, he is
planning to open a jazz club in Chandler called Mayfield's.

In the coming months, he plans to travel to Thailand to perform at a
lavish 75th-birthday celebration for King Bhumibol Adulyadej; record a
new album with Los Hombres Calientes, probably in South Africa; and take
musicians from the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra on tour.

Despite this busy schedule, Mr. Mayfield said he would take his new
academic commitments seriously. He and Dillard's president, Michael L.
Lomax, hope to make the institute a center for jazz performance and
education that can rival any in the country, including the Jazz at
Lincoln Center program in New York.

"It's an academically based institution that will do documentation,
education, scholarship and performance of the music that has its roots
here in New Orleans," Mr. Lomax said. "We are beginning it with a series
of performances by Irvin here on campus, because we want to create a
sense of this as a place where this music is heard. We hope it will
develop into a center for education about jazz, especially for a new
generation that doesn't know much about this music at all."

After the final performance of his "Strange Fruit," Mr. Mayfield
acknowledged a standing ovation by promising the crowd, "A lot of jazz,
a lot of great things, are going to be coming from Dillard University."