[Dixielandjazz] NEW ORLEANS JAZZ AS DEFINED BY TRUMPETER IRVINMAYFIELD

[Burt Wilson]

Could be he's the reincarnation of Louis.
Burt Wilson


> [Original Message]
> From: Stephen Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
> To: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
> Date: 10/29/03 6:50:52 AM
> Subject: [Dixielandjazz] NEW ORLEANS JAZZ AS DEFINED BY TRUMPETER
IRVINMAYFIELD
>
> 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."
>
>
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