NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – He’s a master musician and rarely do we get a chance to see him play this instrument because he’s one of the world’s premiere trumpet players, but for Irvin Mayfield Jr., it truly is a wonderful world!
Mayfield’s also an educator, entrepreneur, Artistic Director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, and father, and we got a chance to catch up with him at the newly completed home of NOJO, the People’s Health New Orleans Jazz Market in Central City, and he told us where his journey started.
Mayfield says, “My dad said, ‘If I get you this trumpet, you can never put this horn down. You’re going to have to practice and this horn needs to pay your way through college.’ I said, like most people who start in the arts, the humanities, you don’t understand in the craftsmanship of what you’re doing. There’s an extreme technical wall that must be climbed.”
After initially resisting that climb of the technical wall, Mayfield was blessed to have a number of music greats that were family friends, helped him along the way. Among the biggest influence came from Clyde Kerr Jr. at NOCCA who helped him develop his passion for the music.
“Passion, for me, which I think is what New Orleans is all about, is the embrace of the bad times and the good times. It’s the type of joy you get from having a child that you nurse through the sickness, that you enjoy through the fun times, that you have the discipline challenges through, that you go through the whole paradigm of experiences, and it makes you appreciate the craftsmanship inside the whole field of what you’re doing”, according to Mayfield.
There’s a lot of passion in Mayfield’s life. He’s a passionate Artistic Director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra; we’re meeting in the brand new home of NOJO, a space he’s quite proud of, “We’ve made, once again, an important part of history to answer a mandate that the greatest creative geniuses in America That their work is now honored by a symbol what’s worthy of the legacy that these people have left behind.”
We also asked Mayfield about being the proprietor of Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse and the responsibility and joy of providing an opportunity for the music to be heard, and jazz artists to make a living. He was humbled by the question.
Says Mayfield, “One big joy would be Germaine Bazzle every Sunday, in her 80s getting better, stronger. I never thought I would be able to be a part of something that amazing. That’s tremendous. The Original Tuxedo Jazz Band every Monday, they’re 104 years old, I mean, this stuff is…I mean, man, I would do this for free.”
The Peoples Health New Orleans Jazz Market is located at 1436 Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in Central City.