On November 3, 2021, Mayfield was sentenced to 18 months in prison for defrauding the New Orleans public library system for over one million dollars.

His father was a drill sergeant in the United States Army and a boxer who died in the flood after Hurricane Katrina.

[1] Mayfield started his musical career in the late 1980s with the Algiers Brass Band, a traditional New Orleans–based street act.

The work is reminiscent of Wynton Marsalis's Blood on the Fields and All Rise, and the storyline features a doomed interracial romance in 1920s Louisiana.

[4] Mayfield appears in performance footage in the 2005 documentary film Make It Funky!, which presents a history of New Orleans music and its influence on rhythm and blues, rock and roll, funk and jazz.

[5] In the film, he performs "Skokiaan" as part of a trumpet challenge with Kermit Ruffins and Troy Andrews.

In May 2016, Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra reached an agreement to pay $483,000 of that money back to the Library Foundation over a period of five years, and NOJO also pledged to raise the rest of the $1.1 million through benefit concerts.

On April 13, 2017, WWLTV reported that FBI and the Inspector General's office are seeking information from the New Orleans Library Foundation, as it continues its investigation into jazz musician Mayfield.

[13][14][15][16][17] Mayfield was indicted on December 14, 2017, by a federal grand jury on 19 counts including fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.