Irvin Mayfield touts New Orleans jazz in his ‘Playhouse’ book

13th April 2015   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

New Orleans Jazz Playhouse
By Irvin Mayfield
(Basin Street Records)

Caution: If you have a delicate Rococo table in front of your sofa, then Irvin Mayfield’s New Orleans Jazz Playhouse book and CD package might find a more suitable home on a sturdier piece of furniture. The volume, which takes its name from Mayfield’s Bourbon Street club, is aptly described as a “coffee table book,” because of its wealth of photos and personalized stories and essays. But man, at some 300 pages, it’s physically heavy.

The book’s contents, however, while hugely informative, educational, often amusing and certainly insightful, isn’t a bit weighty. Grammy award-winning Irvin Mayfield, who is one serious trumpeter, composer, bandleader and businessman, tells the tale of jazz from his perspective in the first person as if he’s talking to you – which he is. His desire is to share his passion for music, art, literature, and New Orleans. One way he achieves this goal is by introducing readers to those who cultivated those loves in him.

He quickly introduces readers to Leah Chase, the renowned chef and owner of Dooky Chase’s restaurant. Mayfield was a teenager when he first met Chase and though it’s certain he enjoyed her cooking, he still clearly remembers the impact of seeing the art that adorned the walls of her Orleans Avenue restaurant. In the vignette, Mayfield declares that it was Leah “who taught me how to live an art-filled life.”

Another lesson Mayfield learned from Chase was the importance of giving. She told him: “Mr. Mayfield, when I didn’t have money to give, I gave my talent by providing food.” In turn, throughout his career, the trumpeter has raised money for numerous charities with his horn.

The some 160, stunning – primarily black-and-white – photographs were shot by both national artists including Mayfield’s mentor Gordon Parks and Herman Leonard and locals Greg Miles and Erika Goldring. They sing in rich harmony with the written words of the text. Favorites include Mayfield and fellow trumpeter Lionel Ferbos having a good laugh at Mayfield’s home. In 1996, photographer Michael P. Smith was in the right spot to catch Mayfield, Kermit Ruffins and Wynton Marsalis engaging in a trumpet “face off” at Tremé’s Little People’s Place.

Mayfield also pays tribute to artists John Scott and George Rodrigue by including their works and wisdom in the volume. Two oil on wood paintings by Gustave Blache III of Leah Chase cooking in her restaurant’s kitchen are so realistic that at first glance they appear to be photographs.

“New Orleans Jazz Playhouse” is scrapbook-like in the variety of little tidbits of items collected within its pages. Scattered throughout the remembrances and reflections — some deadly serious, some light-hearted — there’s a top-10 list of Mayfield’s favorite jazz recordings, sheet music, recipes and letters. There’s even a map of the United States and, perhaps a bit superfluous, a section devoted to cocktails.

Mayfield throws in little treasures like the quote from his mother who once said, “You never step in the same river twice” and he speaks solemnly of the death of his father in the flood waters after the levee breaches following Hurricane Katrina. He explains that his father never believed in evacuating for a storm.

A repeated line or phrase is common in jazz and all music as it adds a familiarity, a hook, to a composition. Mayfield employs this technique when writing about his mentors and friends. “Herman’s pictures are in the sound of my trumpet,” writes Mayfield of photographer Herman Leonard. “Our friendship is in the sound of my trumpet,” he declares of pianist Ronald Markham, who acts as the CEO of Mayfield’s New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO). “Our childhood journey is in the sound of my trumpet,” Mayfield offers of trumpeter Leon “Kid Chocolate” Brown.

Improvisation is as prominent in Mayfield’s book and words as it is in the jazz music that he loves and promotes wherever he travels. His latest endeavor is his newly opened jazz mecca, the New Orleans Jazz Market on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard.

The Music Within

Cleverly attached on the inside front and back covers of the book are seven CDs that, like the volume’s chapters, are distinguished by the days of the week – “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… The material was selected from live performances at Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse during his annual week-long, fundraising event, The Love Sessions. Without exception, the music, performed by the New Orleans Jazz Playhouse Revue – that could be described as the house band as opposed to the larger NOJO – is just really top-notch.

The musicians for the sessions feature Mayfield, trombonist Vincent Gardner, drummer Adonis Rose, bassist Peter Harris, tenor and soprano saxophonist Derek Douget, baritone saxophonist Jason Marshall and pianist John Chin. The mix of veteran musicians and up-and-comers plus an array of very special guests welcomes the listener into the club for a night of jazz, a night of New Orleans music.

The spectrum of music embraces Mayfield’s originals as well as too rarely heard tunes from the pens of New Orleans greats including drummer James Black, pianist/vocalist James Booker and saxophonist Harold Battiste. There are some surprises here as well with the multi-talented Jamison Ross and Michael Watson, known as a drummer and trombonist respectively, teamed vocally on the Impressions’ soul hit “Keep On Pushing.” Mayfield’s true trumpet tone is again revealed on “Yesterday” as it is on the straight-up jazz numbers. Other guests include drummer and vocalist Shannon Powell, banjoist/vocalist Don Vappie and a whole lot more of Mayfield’s musical friends.

The first quote of the book naturally comes from the great trumpeter/vocalist/composer Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, a genius who totally possessed the spirit of New Orleans and its music. “All music is folk music,” he proclaimed. “I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song.”

It takes serious musicians with a sense of humanity to play jazz music. The music is about and for the people or, as Armstrong put it, it’s “folk music.”

In New Orleans Jazz Play­house, Mayfield passionately presents the art form in this light – complete with beauty, intelligence and humor. The stories, photos, remembrances and essays ring with warmth and the love of jazz. They are about New Orleans — they are about us.

This article originally published in the April 13, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.