| The new Orleans Jazz Orchestra at the Overture Center: Transcendental jazz |
| There is just something about jazz that seems to fit just about every mood or emotion an individual might be in. In Irvin Mayfield’s view, it is that universality that all artists seek to achieve. “When an artist is serious about what they do, you can tap a lot of emotions,” Mayfield said during a telephone interview with The Capital City Hues. “And it’s that range of emotions that are there and you find them in whatever it is, be it a piece of literature, an article, a great piece of visual art or in a ballet. Those things transcend one another. So when you hear a song and it is haunting, if you had been part of the tsunami and that song came on, you would have felt that because that is the emotion that song is tapping. That’s the true achievement that an artist wants to reach. You want to have songs that transcend the writer, that transcend where it got started. You take a song like ‘Yesterday,’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote it, but that’s not what is foremost on your mind. The song can represent and mean so much more than that.” Good jazz becomes a part of you, entwining with your emotions and almost defining your mood. “Feeling is a spiritual thing beyond a thought,” Mayfield continued. “I think the same is true about great music. It can function in many different ways and many different people have many different purposes for it. That’s another objective of great music, to serve a different purpose at different times. I try to make it so that all of the art that I put out has that fluidity and flexibility to it. Romare Bearden, the great collagist, said ‘Every piece of great art should be left incomplete so that the onlooker must complete it.’ I think that is true for any medium of great art like a novel. The most impressive novels are those which you read and you bring your perspective to it.” While on his CD Mayfield sounds like “old school” jazz, he refuses to be pigeonholed in terms of what his jazz style is. He’s too busy being that style to label it. “I don’t concern myself with fitting in something. I think where I’m from — the city of New Orleans — and being a guy who is 30 years old and having the interest in being the type of artist I am is what I’m about,” Mayfield said. “I kind of let the critics and everyone else try to organize where the vast amounts of music must go.” Mayfield was personally struck by tragedy when Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans. His father was one of Katrina’s victims. But while the tragedy of Katrina may affect his emotions and work itself into the feelings that drive his music, Mayfield vowed that he would never compose directly about Katrina. “It isn’t something that I choose as topical in terms of my art,” Mayfield emphasized. “I’m not going to create a piece called Hurricane Katrina. That’ s not my approach to it. It is what it is and I think we have to address it and be serious about it. I lost my father in the storm. So I have deep personal feelings about it. But in terms of my art, what you don’t want to do is think that because the subject matter or the context is so serious, it is going to upgrade your art. You can be a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, had a terrible experience, create a piece about it and it sounds like crap. Katrina won’t make your song good. Great art has to be great art first and then you can choose your topic and things that work for you. That’s your pleasure if you are an artist.” While Mayfield may be only 30 years old, musically he performs like an old hand. He is a cultural ambassador of the city of New Orleans. And he is appalled by the lack of support for the arts in general and jazz in particular in America. “The real reality is — and it’s not a New Orleans issue, it’s an American issue — that we have to learn to support things that are here,” Mayfield said. “I think one of the big problems is that people sometimes mistake a lack of infrastructure or organization as a great starting ground [for jazz in New Orleans]. When art develops in a situation like that, it develops in spite of that kind of situation. So the randomness or lack of support that the music came up with — being from New Orleans and in America and never being supported like it should have been supported — that’s really not good. The real reality is that America as well as New Orleans should put some infrastructure in place to support these things because when storms and tragedies and terrible things happen, you need to have some type of framework to protect and support these things that are around. That’s one of the reasons you get into the issue where you get concerned that the jazz may not be the same or may not be there [after Katrina]. It’s not because they are going to put infrastructure in place and identify what it is. The lack of structure is one of the reasons it is in danger now. That’s an American issue. I think a lot of times people perceive a jazz musician as a fat Black guy in a tattered suit who has had a hard life and is alcoholic. It’s the same for blues music. I think we have to get a little beyond that to truly represent the great American art form that it is.” And in Mayfield’s view, jazz is truly representative of America and its democratic traditions. “Jazz is very complex because you have so many different voices speaking at one time and they all have to work together with one another,” Mayfield said. “If you listen to the music of someone like Willie Nelson, you have someone who is in front, it’s his song and everyone is kind of supporting him, whereas with jazz, everyone is the leader. Everyone has to be a part of it. It is truly a part of the democratic process. I think that makes a larger range of emotion at different times as well as a certain amount of spontaneity.” Mayfield will be bringing a 20 piece band, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, to the Overture Center February 27 for an evening of authentic New Orleans jazz. And with 20 experts stewed in the New Orleans jazz tradition, the evening is sure to serve up a heaping gumbo of musical flavor. “I like to think of jazz like great food,” Mayfield said. “You can go to a restaurant and have a dish, but it isn’t going to be the same dish. You can’t get the same exact ingredients, the exact same way, not at a five star restaurant. When you go back, something is a little different. That’ s what jazz is. The dish that they made last night is not the greatest dish in the world. There’s always room for improvement. There’s always another little type of seasoning that you can add on to something.” “At the end of the day, there is always room for us to make something better,” Mayfield continued. “And that is what jazz is. Jazz is probably the most humbling of musical experiences you can have because every day you go on stage, you say ‘You know what? What I did last night, I’m going to try to do something better than that.’ And you know that there is a real possibility that you can.” Mayfield is looking forward to bringing some authentic New Orleans jazz to Madison. And he emphasized that people shouldn’t expect to just sit there and be stoic while the orchestra plays. Like all great jazz, the music will start moving your feet and speaking to your emotions. This is, after all, New Orleans jazz. Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra will perform at the Overture Center on February 27 at 7 p.m. Tickets range from $15-$35. For ticket information, call 258-4141. |
| Irvin Mayfield's father, Irvin Mayfield Sr., died in the floods of Hurricane Katrina |
| By Jonathan Gramling Listening to Irvin Mayfield and Ellis Marsalis’ new CD, ‘Love Songs, Ballads and Standards,’ as I traveled down a starkly cold Illinois highway at night, reminded me how transcendental jazz can really be. Its melody and the dynamite combination of piano and trumpet seemed to flow out of the car and into the vastness beyond, almost a soundtrack for the mood of the moment and the frozen countryside outside. Perhaps I would have felt the same way if it had been a tropical moonlit night with lapping waters nearby. |