How Louis Armstrong, Jazz, And The Mafia Got All Tangled Up In Storyville
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I just stumbled across this article today and I thought that some you might find it interesting:
https://crimereads.com/jazz-organized-crime-louis-armstrong-mafia/
Steve Smith
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Thanks, Steve. I knew some things like this were part of Satchmo's life but not to this extent. Thanks for the article.
George -
Interesting read, I enjoyed it, thanks. I didn't see how a direct Mafia-to Louis link was made, though.
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@kehaulani said in How Louis Armstrong, Jazz, And The Mafia Got All Tangled Up In Storyville:
Interesting read, I enjoyed it, thanks. I didn't see how a direct Mafia-to Louis link was made, though.
New Orleans was the first area in the United States where the Mafia was established as far back as the 1800s. One of the early crime families was the “Matranga Family”. Louis Armstrong’s employer, according to the original post was “Henry Matranga”. The following is an excerpt from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans_crime_family
“ The Matranga crime family, established by Charles (1857 - October 28, 1943) and Antonio (Tony) Matranga (d. 1890 ?), was one of the earliest recorded American Mafia crime families, operating in New Orleans during the late 19th century until the beginning of Prohibition in 1920.
Born of Arbëreshê descent and members of the Italo-Albanian Greek Catholic Church in Piana dei Greci, Sicily, Carlo and Antonio Matranga immigrated to New Orleans during the 1870s and eventually opened a saloon and brothel. Using their business as a base of operations, the Matranga brothers began establishing lucrative organized criminal activities including extortion and labor racketeering. Receiving tribute payments from Italian laborers and dockworkers, as well as from the Provenzano family (who came from the same village), they eventually began moving in on Provenzano fruit loading operations intimidating the Provenzanos with threats of violence.….”
In his autobiography, Armstrong writes about his arrest, and mentions Matranga. "They did not book us right away and held us for investigation in the prison yard with the long-term prisoners waiting to go up the river," Armstrong writes, describing a situation that might conflict with civil liberties protections today.
The experience was jarring for the young man."The first day we were in the yard, I went up to shake hands with one of the prisoners I had known out on the street," he writes. "All of a sudden someone jabbed me in the back with a broom handle and tripped me up. When I looked up, I saw Sore Dick (the yard boss) staring at me without saying a word. It dawned on me at once that I had better get busy with the broom he was holding. All the newcomers, I later found out, had to sweep out the yard whether it needed it or not. That is the way they get you in the groove before you start serving a term."
Matranga pulled some strings ("part of a system that was always worked in those days," Armstrong notes) and got the cornet player out of jail -- and just in time. "The day I got out of jail, Mardi Gras was being celebrated," Armstrong writes. "It's a great day for all New Orleans, and particularly for the Zulu Aid Pleasure and Social Club (sic)."
He continues, "When I ran into this celebration and the good music, I forgot all about Sore Dick and the Parish Prison…..”
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Got it, thanks.
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Foot note for SSmith biographic post
Satchmo My Life in New Orleans
Scholar Select
Page 126Schilke x3
Bach Strad 37
Courtois Flugel -
@fels said in How Louis Armstrong, Jazz, And The Mafia Got All Tangled Up In Storyville:
Foot note for SSmith biographic post
Satchmo My Life in New Orleans
Scholar Select
Page 126Thanks!
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I have seen gangland at work and have a little knowledge of how the mafia operated back in the day so this link between Armstrong and the mafia in no way alarms me.
Mafia were a family and worked by giving and calling in of favors much like a union.
I might ask a mafia boss to help me with a problem, getting paid for a gig for example, and then if he helped recover the debt I would owe the boss a favor. he might call this favor in by expecting me to play at his daughters wedding as a freebie.
Mafia involvement in working practices was a way of life especially as a musician working in mafia owned clubs or speakeasys. It was unavoidable, or you simply got no work.
Working with the Mafia but for non mafia clients was a way to ensure payment from the non mafia clients. And in return some form of dues would be demanded.
Gamblers sometimes worked with Mafia partners not because of Mafia threats but because the gambler knew that the Mafia would collect the gamblers winnings for him., and take the agreed cut. But the cut was less than the losses if the loser ran off as a bad debt and refused to pay.
Today musicians have huge problems with payment, I have experienced these myself.
Clients and venues expecting a musician to pay the client or venue to get the gig, or expecting the musician to buy 500 tickets in advance and then sell those tickets to raise some money for the gig when the venue should be paying its own costs its advertising and selling tickets. Pay for Play.
Venues telling musicians that there will be no fee at all for the gig it will be good exposure and help build the musicians career.
Venues agreeing to pay the musician and then after a successful gig where the venue make tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, no money appears. Or the venue cancels the gig at last minute with no compensation.
The Mafia acted honestly compared to these dishonest practices by so called honest people today.
I am not trying to justify the Mafia and their practices here but a musician could starve to death at the hands of honest folk.
It is said keep an artist hungry, and the starving artist is well known cliche, but the music industry seems to have taken the idea of the starving artist as their duty to make musicians starve.
After all there are plenty of young musicians just starting out who will work for nothing and be glad of getting the gig.
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Don't know the system now, but when I was working in Japan, we had the chimpedas and Yakuza who were entwined into the whole scheme of entertainment. Very corrupt, well-organized and dangerous. On a gig, for instance, the Yakuza boss got the first cut, then the club owner then the musicians.
The money was in an inverse pyramid. The Yakuza boss got a huge chunk (he didn't do anything, but you could get your lips cut and your teeth knocked out if you interfered), then the club owner got as much as he could get away with, then the musicians had to divide the paltry sum left among themselves.
I remember at one point where, in America or England, they would be living the good life of Sex, Drugs and Rock&Roll, the Scorpions (big at the time) were living in a one-room apartment-the whole band.
I played gigs where the waiting line to get into the club was a block long and yet your cut was $15.00, and you say something at your own peril.
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Great insight kehaulani. The Mafia I am more familiar with is sardinian corsican and italian mafias.
japan was always an anachronism and remains so to this day.
We foreigners were the hated gaijin - outsider peoples who many native japanese despised and I suspect the yakuza didnt like much.
On the other hand I have had wonderful relations with normal japanese people they are very welcoming.
As for getting 15 dollars from a venue for an appearance I have never been paid anything by any venue in england.
They are all talk and no trousers.
people in the street are far more generous and more giving than venues in my experience. I only know 6 venues who will pay musicians any money at all and this is a huge city with 2.8 million residents.
One band I met a few months ago, an ensemble of 3 who were paid had driven 200 miles and paid their own expenses fuel etc, and they only received 25 english pounds between them for the day.
That 25 pounds would only take the van halfway or 100 miles so they operated at a monumental loss.
But it is no good wishing things were different it is what it is and it is up to us to find a way forward. I make enough to get by and that is all we can hope.
respect to you kehaulani sir.
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I think I may be misinterpreting your words, but I have never experienced hatred as a Gaijin and I traveled and worked the entire width and breadth of the country, Not even mild prejudice against Americans.
The first time I lived in Japan it was still post-WWII Japan. I was always met with respect and interest. The second time I lived there was during the Viet Nam War and Anti-American sentiments were high, yet I circulated freely and always had a good time, resentment being against the govmt. not individuals.
As a post-script, my High School in Hawai`i was nicknamed "Tokyo High" because of its number on Japanese-American students. In a graduating class of over 774, I was one of only nine Haoles (Caucasians).
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I've only been to Japan once, and my stay was brief. However, I was very impressed with their culture. It's perfectly safe to walk the streets at night, and they keep those streets very clean and tidy.
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Wise words indeed kehaulani, generalising about people is usually unwise.
My own experience of japanese people is as a personal student of several japanese teachers who were sometimes stern sometimes aloof often very good natured and always respectful.
Also I have experience of working with japanese colleagues who were polite caring and very welcoming, I was invited to their homes and always observed correct ettiquette.
I am confronted however with the reported experience of others who have suffered a poor reception in Japan typically from youths who perhaps should know better but then youths will be youths.
I have also read an account authored by a distinguished korean who suffered prejudice when first visiting Japan.
My expectation is that the japanese mafia would be as unwelcoming to foreigners as are gangs in the west. I have direct experience of that myself in the west.
I should add that I have studied japanese history and culture and the gaijin prejudice was very real and still appears even today.
I will cite this extract from wikipedia as evidence of present day discrimination against foreigners.
"Non-Japanese individuals in Japan often face human rights violations that Japanese citizens may not. In recent years, non-Japanese media has reported that Japanese firms frequently confiscate the passports of guest workers in Japan, particularly unskilled laborers. Critics call this practice, which is legal and encouraged in Japan, coercive and a form of human trafficking."
Having said this I do like the japanese but we have to accept they have problems in society like we do.
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Regarding the taking of your workers' passports, that's a logical way if keeping these foreigners from disappearing into the woodwork like they do here. Don't like it. don't come.
When I moved to Japan, one of the first things I had to do was to go down to the local police box and register my residence there. Many Americans would scream loss of privacy. But it helps keep crime down and if one occurs, frequently leads the police to a quick resolution.
I don't want to go into detail, but it happened to me. The cops got the perpetrator the same day and I never saw him again.
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Yes it is a very good way of preventing workers from disappearing but it is also a very good way of tying workers to their employer preventing them from ever leaving and forcing them to stay without any pay rises forcing them to stay even if they never get paid at all for their work. This is bonded slavery in all but name.
It is open to abuse and is used in arabic countries to force americans who leave america looking for a good life to stay in a company without receiving any pay having been promised huge pay great conditions and a great lifestyle but when they get there they find their documents held permanently with no pay in poor conditions and it is illegal for them to leave their employer or the country, it is easy to say if americans dont like it they shouldnt have gone to work there but that is avoiding the issue. If the company had no intention of paying westerners for their work they should not have employed them and enticed them to leave their home country.
I dont wish to turn this into a political debate, but these things have to be faced, Japan is not perfect they can be restrictive and abusive toward foreigners and simply because one has not seen abuse while there does not mean it doesnt exist and it doesnt happen.
There is modern white slaving and slavery happening in my own home town in england one of the most developed nations in the west.
If there is a system however well intentioned, that can be used to abuse people, then evil people will use that system to abuse people. It happens in arabia it happens in england it happens in france it happens in germany it happens in america and it happens in japan, it doesnt just happen in the places we dont like.
It is usually hidden from public gaze and hidden from us so we dont even know it is happening.
And Japan mistreats its native japanese workers as well. There are thousands of unemployed and unemployable japanese who have worked but will never get a job and work again, the Japanese system is not constructed to help japanese people back into work it is never envisaged you will ever lose your job, and those who do and suffer are hidden from public gaze so foreign visitors never know they exist and never know it is happening.
I am not bashing Japan I am not making political points here, I am saying Japan has its problems as do the arabian states as does the west all nations have issues and problems and these can only be addressed and made better if we recognise they exist.
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As valid as many of these comments may be - we are getting very far from the original topic and into dangerous political matters. To avoid ruption, I am provisionally locking this thread. If there is something to be added to the original story, whoever wants to put it in just has to ask to get the thread opened again. This is not censorship - just a gentle reminder to abstain from politics.
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Locked by
barliman2001
