Irvin Mayfield and Ellis Marsalis: Love Songs, Ballads and Standards

Basin Street Records 0405
(www.basinstreetrecords.com or www.irvinmayfield.com) 

More than just an excellent jazz CD, this collaboration between two New Orleans natives, young trumpeter Irvin Mayfield and his former piano teacher Ellis Marsalis, is a survivors’ statement. Love Songs, Ballads and Standards is dedicated to the memory of Mayfield’s father, who perished in Hurricane Katrina. Irvin was born in New Orleans in 1977. His mother taught school in the Ninth Ward where, he recalls, she would “illuminate the larger purpose of art.” As a boy, Irvin played organ at his local church, and by age 10 he had learned to play the hymn “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” on the trumpet. On this new CD, his renditions of jazz standards like Thelonious Monk’s “’Round Midnight” and Duke Ellington’s “In a Sentimental Mood” are exceptionally tender and intimate. His duo partner Marsalis, born in 1934, is the patriarch of a famous performing family which includes trumpeter Wynton and sax player Branford, but more pertinently, he has spent a lifetime teaching music in New Orleans. Marsalis’ sage, sweetly meditative reflections at the keyboard exalt a place still associated with natural disaster and the tragic inadequacy of political response. Mayfield says, “The funeral portion of New Orleans is over. I’m looking for the rebuild and resurrection.” Imbued with hard-won serenity, conscious of human suffering, Love Songs, Ballads and Standards will move and inspire all listeners to transcend their own personal challenges.