Trumpeter Irvin Mayfield and his business partner Ronald Markham may be singing a new tune on Tuesday when the alleged musicians and opportunists are set to be re-arraigned for allegedly transferring more than $1 million in public library donations to their New Orleans Jazz Orchestra accounts. The two currently face 24 felony corruption counts for the misappropriation of funds.
The Grammy award-winning trumpeter was a mainstay on the New Orleans music scene. In 2001, OffBeat writer Jonathan Tabak profiled the musician, writing in awe of his skyrocketing success. “Walking up to Irvin Mayfield’s apartment building, passing the flourishing art galleries, upscale restaurants and other urbane features of the New Orleans Warehouse District, I couldn’t help but marvel at how well things are coming together for the 23-year-old musician,” wrote Tabak.
Perhaps it is Mayfield’s 2015 OffBeat feature that is the most infamous, which NPR detailed in a 2017 report: “In three-quarter profile, half-smiling at the camera over his elaborately tattooed shoulder, New Orleans trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, Jr. appeared on the cover of the April 2015 issue of the venerable Louisiana music monthly OffBeat. The story, headlined ‘Irvin Mayfield’s Expanding World,’ caught up with the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO) founder and artistic director on a long list of activities, including the imminent launch of a project that had been long in the works for Mayfield and his team: the New Orleans Jazz Market, a 340-seat theater in Central City, a historically African-American neighborhood in Uptown New Orleans. A $10 million renovation had transformed a discount store on a faltering commercial strip into a sleek lounge that, Mayfield said, would be a multi-use community space as well as a performance home base for the 16-piece NOJO, which is also a nonprofit offering free after-school and weekend music instruction.'”
In December 2017, Mayfield and his longtime friend and NOJO cohort, Markham, were indicted with an initial 19 felony counts of taking funds from the New Orleans Public Library’s public charity organization.
According to David Hammer, the long-time Mayfield investigative reporter at New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL-TV, “U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey set the change of plea hearing for November 10 after five delays in Mayfield’s criminal trial and several more delays over the summer because the federal court was closed by the coronavirus pandemic. A grand jury charged Mayfield and Markham with conspiracy, money laundering, wire fraud, mail fraud, obstruction of justice and false statements. Prosecutors alleged they used the donations meant for public libraries and lined their own pockets, paying themselves six-figure salaries, and then lied about it to nonprofit board members and to federal investigators. The federal government added two superseding indictments in 2018, bringing the total charges against Mayfield and Markham to 24. Mayfield faces one of those counts alone and Markham faces another charge by himself.”
The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, now led by drummer and artistic director Adonis Rose, has distanced itself from Markham and Mayfield, and continues to perform and to headquartered in the New Orleans Jazz Market in Central City.
