In the last three years, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield has become an important force in New Orleans music. The 21-year-old is a charismatic, up-and-coming performer.

More importantly, whether he’s working with Jason Marsalis and Bill Summers in the groundbreaking “Afro-world jazz” group Los Hombres Calientes, or forming a giant orchestra to perform a tribute to Duke Ellington, or challenging Kermit Ruffins to a “Battle of the Bands,” Mayfield dares to push himself, his fellow jazz artists, and the local audience into fresh, challenging territory.

Mayfield is by nature intrepid and, as this record shows, it usually pays off. At nine, for example, he sauntered into the Marsalis home and challenged Ellis, the patriarchal pianist, to a cutting contest. Ellis schooled him on “Body and Soul” Now, twelve years later, it is Ellis who accompanies Mayfield on his debut, playing an elegant, duet version of the same song.

But don’t let that one standard fool you. Rather than falling back on safe material to display his precocious trumpet chops, Mayfield gathers marquee talent, such as Donald Harrison, Jr. (sax), Adonis Rose (drums), and pianist Peter Martin, fellow up-and.comers like Aaron Fletcher (sax) and trombonist Stephen Walker, and dives mostly into fast, complex originals: “burn-out” tunes like “Immaculate Conception” and “Lascivious Intervention,” and groovin’ tunes like “The Great M.D.” and “Ninth Ward Blues.”

Harrison, Jr., who has been a “burn out’ innovator for over 15 years, is absolutely stunning, especially on “Midnight Theme,” the disc’s high point. He and Mayfield trade solos until the tension releases and they pour forth into playful, intertwining melodic fragments, like a bird’s nest at feeding time. Other highlights include “Giant Steps,” which Mayfield spices up with a Brazilian groove.

Like his friend Jason Marsalis, who debuted last fall with Year of the Drummer (also on Basin Street Records), Mayfield proves that he is more interested in pushing boundaries than establishing a commercial persona.