


Empire of Sin re-creates the remarkable story of New Orleans' thirty-years war against itself, pitting the city's elite 'better half' against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. Language eng Summary "From bestselling author Gary Krist, a vibrant and immersive account of New Orleans' other civil war, at a time when commercialized vice, jazz culture, and endemic crime defined the battlegrounds of the Crescent City.

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But nothing gripped the city more than a series of brutal axe murders, usually of seemingly innocent Italian grocery shop owners. A Mafia- inspired group of Italians called the Black Hand Gang instituted a wave of what Krist calls "homicidal chaos" as territories and protection rackets were established and fought over. Never recorded, Bolden suffered from mental problems and was eventually incarcerated in an asylum, but not before he inspired a second generation of artists who would take jazz to a worldwide audience, including Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory, Sidney Bechet and, of course, Armstrong.īut where there was pleasure there was also crime. A barnstorming performer, it was said he could be heard all the way across the 14-mile width of Lake Pontchartrain, while a fellow musician claimed he was such a powerful player that he "blew the tuning slide out of his cornet and it would land 20 feet away". Not yet named jass or jazz, its first leading practitioner was the now almost mythical trumpeter Buddy Bolden.

Here, fortunes were made and lost in a district where pimps, prostitutes, gamblers and hustlers would go under the names of Steel Arm Johnny, Mary Meathouse, Gold Tooth Gussie, Coke-Eyed Laura, Charlie Bow Wow and many more.Īdding spice to this already rambunctious mixture was a new type of "raggedy music" played by the so-called "professors" at brothels or by a growing number of Afro-American musicians in bars and at dances. He also published the "Blue Book", a handy guide for the man "who wants to be a thoroughbred bounder" which contained ads, photos and descriptions of every one of the area's better brothels, with each practitioner conveniently identified by race – "w" for white, "c" for coloured, "J" for Jewish.
