Dillard's Musical on Lynching Getting National Attention

Photo credit: Sebern Coleman Jr., The Courtbouillon Irvin Mayfield's performance of "Strange Fruit" featured narration, a 21-piece jazz orchestra and a chorus.

By Shearon Roberts
Black College Wire

"Strange Fruit," a groundbreaking musical on lynching launched in the fall at Dillard University in New Orleans, is getting national attention.

Selections from the composition are to be incorporated into an HBO special on lynching this year, and its creator, 25-year-old trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, anticipates that the piece will be used as mood music for the documentary. The musical is being discussed in the national media.

With a nine-movement piece that features narration, a 21-piece jazz orchestra and a chorus, all taking the audience musically on a historical journey, Mayfield was able to present an atrocity that he said is often overlooked because of the guilt felt by society.

Mayfield had audiences on the edge of their seats dancing, laughing, reflecting and then mourning when the concert debuted in October at the Lawless Memorial Chapel at Dillard.

Photo credit: Sebern Coleman Jr., The Courtbouillon Irvin Mayfield

The piece depicts a racially segregated 1920s Louisiana, where a love affair between a young white southern debutante, Mary Anne, and a young Negro, LeRoi, angers Mary Anne's fiance, Charles, a jealous member of the elite.

LeRoi and Mary Anne consummate their love despite the social consequences.

Charles beats Mary Anne and apprehends LeRoi, accusing him of rape.

The town gets rowdy, parties begin, vendors come in, the governor arrives and a noose is measured. The town is excited and prepared for a lynching.

Even though Charles backs down, the townsmen proceed.

A huge banner with thousands of names of people who were lynched in America, listed by state, hung outside the chapel as the performance took place.

Combining the talents of the Dillard University concert choir and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, the musical is filled with upbeat songs, ballads and old-school jazz and blues. It comes to a climax when LeRoi’s father gives final rites to his son as the choir sings, “Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Oh Lord, Day is Done.”

Mayfield explains, “This man was extinguished because people thought he was expendable because of his race. He is a sacrificial lamb."

“The piece showed people that I am serious about being a composer,” said Mayfield.

The work has been discussed in the New York Times and the New Orleans Times-Picayune as well as on "The Tavis Smiley Show" on National Public Radio. Plans are being finalized for repeat performances in New Orleans in March and at Emory University in Atlanta.

In November, Mayfield was named cultural ambassador representing the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. In that role, his job is to speak to dignitaries, elected officials, businessmen and the citizens of foreign cities about potential cultural and artistic collaborations that can help recruit new business.

“Strange Fruit” was commissioned by Dillard University President Michael L. Lomax to kick off the university's 2003-2004 artistic season.

It was conceptualized after Mayfield accompanied Lomax to a traveling exhibition in Atlanta called "Without Sanctuary," which displayed pictures of lynchings.

The vehicle was Dillard's Institute of Jazz Culture, designed to promote the study and development of jazz in New Orleans, which is often considered the home of jazz.

The institute is the only one of its kind at an HBCU. Mayfield is its founder and director.

The performance of "Strange Fruit" "shows that Dillard University is interested in engaging in what is going on in modern music today, as well as dealing with serious topics that come from slavery and American history,” Mayfield said.

Lomax called the work a wonderful blending of musical traditions telling a powerful story of violence.

“This reminds us of the tragic consequences of [violence], but it also reminds us of the power of the human spirit to create something beautiful out of something very horrible,” Lomax said.

Mayfield agreed, repeating in an interview the final words of the narrator, “There’s healing in the blues.”

In "Strange Fruit," a pregnant Mary Anne finally hears the blues LeRoi sang when the baby is born. “Blues gives you the way to deal with it,” Mayfield added, “but jazz gives you the way to move forward. Blues is to jazz as blood is to the body.”

He continued, “The performance is making a lot of people stand up and take notice of New Orleans and of a group of musicians, artists and educators who at the end of the day came together and pulled off something on a very serious topic.”

Shearon Roberts, a student at Dillard University, is editor in chief of The Courtbouillon.

Posted Feb. 16, 2004