Irvin Mayfield, New Orleans Jazz Orchestra to perform Nov. 6 at ISU

Irvin Mayfield and The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra will perform Tuesday, Nov. 6, at 7:30 p.m. at the L.E. and Thelma E. Stephens Performing Arts Center in the Joseph C. and Cheryl H. Jensen Grand Concert Hall, at Idaho State University. The performance is part of the 2007-08 Stephens Center’s Season of Note series.

The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, Inc., a non-profit organization, was incorporated in December 2002 by founder and current artistic director Irvin Mayfield, a Grammy-nominated and Billboard Award-winning trumpeter and composer. Mayfield also has been officially appointed as cultural ambassador for the City of New Orleans.

The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (NOJO) performs and presents educational programs that draw upon the rich musical and cultural traditions of the city for which the group is named. They perform the works of masters like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Dizzy Gillespie and many more. NOJO is the only major performing and presenting jazz institution based in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Prior to Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans lacked a world-class performing jazz organization capable of supporting, sustaining, promoting and celebrating jazz's integral value to New Orleans and American culture. Addressing this lack of infrastructure in the birthplace of jazz is NOJO's mission, which they feel now carries greater weight with every passing day in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Tickets prices are $28 main level and $24 upper level. For more information about the performance, contact the Stephens Center Box Office at (208) 282-3595. For more information about the group, visit www.thenojo.com.