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"New Orleans: Now and Then"

Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra

Friday, March 31 • 8pm

“New Orleans funk in all its New World context.”
—The New York Times

Led by young trumpeter and former Wynton Marsalis protégé Irvin Mayfield (of Los Hombres Calientes fame), the hard-swinging, 16-piece New Orleans Jazz Orchestra is the official ensemble of that city's Institute of Jazz Culture, with a repertoire embracing the past, present, and future of New Orleans jazz. As JazzTimes put it, Mayfield is “holding the torch for the port city’s past trumpet kings.”

Program Notes

Led by young trumpeter and former Wynton Marsalis protégé Irvin Mayfield, the hard-swinging, 16-piece New Orleans Jazz Orchestra is the official resident ensemble of that city’s Institute of Jazz Culture, with a repertoire embracing the past, present, and future of New Orleans jazz. It’s “New Orleans funk in all its New World context,” proclaimed The New York Times. And the ensemble’s diversified, modernized sound is at the heart of its mission — to celebrate jazz in the multicultural, international backdrop of its birth. Founded in 2002 by performer, composer, arranger and educator Mayfield, also the ensemble’s Artistic Director, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO) is a permanent national nonprofit performing arts and educational organization.

Even before these ventures, the Grammy-nominated Mayfield “headed a sprawling musical empire,” wrote The New York Times. By the age of 25, he had already released a half-dozen albums; formed a New Orleans-style Latin jazz band, Los Hombres Calientes, with former Herbie Hancock “Headhunter” Bill Summers; and launched his own group, the Irvin Mayfield Quintet. Los Hombres Calientes’ 2000 debut won Billboard’s Latin Music Award for Contemporary Latin Jazz Album of the Year. Although originally inspired by fellow Crescent City trumpeters Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard, Mayfield is blazing ahead with an unmistakable style and grace and has traveled internationally to absorb African, Caribbean, and South American traditions. He is fast becoming one of the most recorded young musicians of his generation. He was appointed as the official New Orleans Cultural Ambassador in 2003. As JazzTimes put it, Mayfield is “holding the torch for the port city’s past trumpet kings.”

— Drew Foxman