IRVIN MAYFIELD

I hope in the future you don’t support seemingly corrupt and arrogant musicians like Irvin Mayfield. In your April cover story Jennifer Odell wrote, “writer David Hammer, Mayfield suggests, seemed bent on proving a musician had no place in library administration.” Mayfield cracks “He’s doing investigative journalism on TV now, and I think he’s enjoying that.”

A few weeks later, on May 5, David Hammer, reporting for WWL-TV, showed that Mayfield and his childhood friend have basically taken hundreds of thousands of dollars destined for the New Orleans Public Library and funneled it to the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra and their swanky new club on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. They pay themselves $100,000 plus salaries as well!

Jazz is important. Having a center for jazz in New Orleans is important, but allowing corrupt people like Irvin Mayfield to represent the best of our city is a huge mistake. I hope OffBeat will no longer support Mayfield and his “Business as Musical” endeavors.

—Devin De Wulf, New Orleans, Louisiana

 

I just read your piece on Mayfield [Jan Ramsey’s Blog “Millage for Mayfield.”]

First of all, the reason that WWL sat on the story until after the election is clear: they didn’t want voters to conflate money going directly to the library, which is public, with money going to the Library Foundation, which is a private entity. What good would it have done to stiff the library just because of Mayfield’s antics? That millage isn’t going to his foundation, but directly to the library coffers. Even if he returned all the money, that wouldn’t come close to saving the library.

And secondly, the reason Mayfield has alienated so many in the music community is not “because” he’s been so successful. Trombone Shorty, Terence Blanchard, and Kermit Ruffins are all equally successful. But musicians don’t resent them because they didn’t achieve their success by using charm to convince high society folks and politicians to give them money and influence, which they then used to build monuments to themselves.

Mayfield very cleverly created his own band, NOJO, as a “non-profit.” The band members receive fair compensation for their work, but for every dollar they receive, Mayfield and his partner each pocket upwards of five to ten times as much. That sounds a lot more like a for-profit corporation than a charitable organization.

NOJO’s mission is “to strengthen the business of jazz through performances, tours, recordings, education and media platforms.” So, for instance, when his orchestra flies up to New York to play a private party for Morgan Stanley, that’s a “performance” and Morgan Stanley gets to write it off as a tax deduction. It’s pretty brilliant. It’s also complete nonsense.

I gotta admit, it’d be nice if when people inquired about my rates to play their festival/club/wedding, I could say “Oh yeah, and it’s tax deductible too!” As long as I spend a few minutes of each gig talking about how great New Orleans is, I’d be fulfilling the mission of “strengthening the business of jazz,” or something.

This all means that taxpayers are subsidizing Mayfield’s endeavors. The Jazz Market cost $10 million to build, and it wasn’t built with charisma and tattooed biceps. As everyone already knows by now, they directed almost $900,000 that was intended for the library system towards their own project. Another big chunk of it came from state tax credits.

And for anyone wondering what the “Jazz Market” actually is, it’s a music club and a bar. But they threw in some free Wi-Fi and a couple of bookshelves, and suddenly it’s a program to expand literacy. Running a band as a “non-profit” worked out so well for Irvin that he decided he’d try to run a music club as a “non-profit.”

Mayfield owes much of his influence to the great Ray Nagin, who appointed him as chairman of the board of the library where he famously fired all the actual librarians and filled their positions with his friends who were just as unqualified as he was. Nagin also gave NOJO over $1,000,000 to administer a program to install sculptures in Armstrong Park. As a musician, I’ve gotten some strange requests, but “installing sculptures” is not one of them. Mayfield even thought about running for mayor himself for a hot second.

Mayfield uses his political power to promote his music and uses his music to accrue more political power. “But he employs a lot of musicians,” I have heard people say. So what? That only makes him more powerful. And Mayfield’s power is evident from how muted the response has been from the local community. I don’t expect the people he employs to risk their paychecks speaking out against him. But every university, festival, church, organization, or rich donor that continues to line his pockets is complicit in his dealings. It was encouraging to see Union President Deacon John speak out, and I hope other big-name artists do the same.

Whether using library money for his own pet projects was illegal will be for the courts to decide. But illegal or not, there is no question about what kind of character he is. He can play dumb, but no one believes that he’s dumb enough to think that library donors actually intended to subsidize a music club.

Regardless of whether Mayfield’s high-powered attorneys manage to keep him out of prison, there are more important questions. Will Jazz Fest continue to put him on the big stage? Will the NOLA CVB continue to run ads with his image? Will Ron Forman keep him on as artistic director of NOJO? If so, they are sending the message that corruption is just another thing to be tolerated in New Orleans, like potholes and high crime. Mayfield built his empire on charisma and taxpayer money, but the silence of New Orleans’ powerful and elite is the only thing holding it together.

—Chris Edmunds, New Orleans, Louisiana

 

OFFBEAT RESPONSE

[Note: Jan Ramsey wrote about the Irvin Mayfield/Ronald Markham situation in her blog posts on May 7 and 12].

The vision of developing jazz, promoting jazz through a new club on Bourbon Street (Irvin Mayfield’s Jazz Playhouse at the Royal Sonesta), creating a New Orleans Jazz Orchestra to represent New Orleans jazz and jazz musicians around the world, the creation of a New Orleans Jazz Institute to educate youngsters in jazz, and the creation of a jazz performance venue (the New Orleans Jazz Market) represent high-ideal visions. This is incredibly admirable. The vision is what Mayfield and Markham “sold.” But the ends do not justify the means.

There is a pattern in this behavior that is far too common in the business and political worlds in New Orleans, particularly in the non-profit arena. Too many times, I’ve been told that it’s only “fair” for non-profit staff and employees to be paid extravagant salaries—far above the norm for this area—because the organization is supposedly for the public good and the compensation has to be comparable to the private sector. There is no reason why any non-profit staff member—rainmaker or not—should be paid, or expect, compensation that could be better applied to the achievement of the organization’s vision.

We certainly cannot by any means condone Mayfield or Markham’s actions. OffBeat is and was supportive of the vision, but not the actions of the visionaries. It’s also highly unfortunate that the moneyed establishment was too blinded by the glamour of the vision to step back and take a hard look at the means to the end. The board of NOJO—and of course, the Library Foundation board—should also be held accountable for this travesty. It’s just too bad that the vision for jazz was corrupted—and may never be perceived in a positive light again—by people who were trusted to take the vision to its fruition. Jazz and those devoted to seeing music take its rightful place in New Orleans may never be able to recover credibility from the moneyed elite who supported these projects.

 

DAVID EGAN

Tab Benoit does indeed have a terrific version of the song “One Foot in the Bayou,” listed on the “Ten Bayou Songs” in your May issue. Since this was introduced specifically as a songwriter list, I wish to let you and your readers know that the song was written by David Egan—it was my Christmas gift the year I moved from New York to Louisiana, to throw in my lot with one seriously handsome piano player. Best decision of my life and one fantastic song.

—Rhonda Egan, Lafayette, Louisiana

 

CORRECTIONS

AMELIA, NOT NAOMI

John Swenson made an error in the blurb about the Neville concert [Neville Brothers Reunite for Tribute Concert, Jazz Fest Bible 2015]. Naomi Neville was Allen Toussaint’s mother—the Neville Brothers mother was Amelia Neville.

—Phyllis Thibault, Stowe, Vermont

 

VACANT CHAIR

Great interview John Swenson [Pete Townshend, Backtalk, Jazz Fest Bible 2015]. One correction: [Steve] Winwood wrote the song “Vacant Chair” for Graham Bond after Bond’s death in 1974, and released it in 1977. Moon died in 1978.

—Marc Starcke, Hollywood, Florida

 

MICHAEL NOT MATT

Thank you for the review in [June 2015] OffBeat [George Porter Jr., It’s Time to Funk (Independent) by John Swenson].

There were a few things wrong that I want to correct. The younger of the four Meters would be Joseph Modeliste, born December 28, 1948—he is 66 years old. I was born December 26, 1947 and I am 67. Sometimes I feel younger smilin’.

Also and most important is that Matt Lemmler does not play in the Runnin’ Pardners. It is his brother Michael Lemmler. Michael has been in the Runnin’ Pardners for almost 18 years and it breaks my heart when I see that this always happens to him. He is a great and wonderful musician and person that keeps getting overlooked and misrepresented in our local press. I know that it is too late to fix the print magazine, but he is not only good people—he is my friend.

—George Porter, Jr., New Orleans, Louisiana

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