New Orleans Jazz Orchestra

The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra was founded by jazz trumpeter Irvine Mayfield in 2002. Irvin Mayfield – born December 23, 1977, in New Orleans, Louisiana – is a trumpeter, bandleader, composer and educator. His musical career began when he joined the Algiers Brass Band in the late 1980s. After he graduated from New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), he was offered a scholarship to attend Juilliard School of Music. He was the co-founder of New Orleans jazz band Los Hombres Calientes, an Afro-Cuban jazz band that formed in 1998. He founded the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra in 2002. Using Jazz at Lincoln Center as a model for this new ensemble, he also emphasized New Orleans’s musical culture and his own compositions. More than just a band, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra was a much larger concept: they were a non-profit organization whose mission was to continue and strengthen the legacy of jazz throughout local and global communities by providing access to unparalleled performances, creative gathering places, and authentic community engagement. One of Irvin Mayfield’s’ projects related to the orchestra was the Jazz Market, which served as both a jazz venue and community center. The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra would go on to record the albums Strange Fruit (2005), Book One (2009), Dee Dee’s Feathers (2015), and Live at Newport (2017) before Irvine Mayfield was forced out of his position once he was indicted for embezzlement. After a period of uncertainty, longtime drummer Adonis Rose stepped up as artistic director of the group in 2017. Under his leadership, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra returned better than ever with the album Music of Allen Toussaint in 2019.

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