@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…..”