Irvin Mayfield,
artistic director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, says of author Ernest
Gaines: 'His art is words and mine is music. This is the work that binds two
artists together.' - Photo:
When I heard that master trumpeter Irvin Mayfield had created an original jazz score to pay tribute to the books of master Louisiana storyteller Ernest Gaines, I was fascinated: How do you turn a collection of memorable stories into music?
“It’s been a really exciting process,” Mayfield said, when we talked by phone. “Ernest Gaines is a brilliant mind and a hell of a character.”
He described the process of creating more than an hour’s worth of music based on Gaines’ entire life’s work as “a collaboration.”
“I’ve been visiting with him for about three years,” said Mayfield, who is the artistic director of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. “His art is words and mine is music. This is the work that binds two artists together.”
The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra’s premiere performance of Mayfield’s major commission “Dirt, Dust and Trees” will be Friday, Nov. 30, at the renovated Joy Theater on Canal Street, which reopened last December. It’s part of the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society’s annual “Words and Music” arts festival, which honors Gaines this year. The concert also celebrates the 10th anniversary of the jazz orchestra Mayfield founded.
“How cool is it to have it at the Joy Theater?” he said. “We’ll have excerpts read by Soledad O’Brien, and I’m hoping Cicely Tyson will be there, too.”
Before he began composing the music, Mayfield read everything Gaines had written: his early work, his famous novels, his short stories, his essays.
“When I thought I was finished, he’d hand me something else and say, ‘Here’s your homework,’” he said, laughing.
Mayfield’s favorite Gaine’s novel is “A Gathering of Old Men.” “It’s the only story I’ve read where a revolution is created by old people,” he said.
Read more on: http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2012/11/irvin_mayfield_turns_the_power.html
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