with a customer for money. To this day, taxi dancing is still illegal in San Francisco. The Jupiter Around 1917 Jelly Roll Morton came to San Francisco and opened the Jupiter club with his paramour, Anita Gonzalez. Though born in New Orleans, he traveled extensively at a young age. Music historian Alan Lomax's taped interviews and performances by Morton provide one of the most insightful looks into jazz during its earliest days on the west coast. Though being raised by an upper class Creole family, his apprenticeship on piano took place at a young age inside the bordellos of New Orleans' Storyville district. While Morton may have not have invented jazz, he was one of the first musicians to think about it in an abstract sense, and his thoughts are still considered relevant today. Besides being a versatile pianist, Morton's distinction was his ability at composing music which went far beyond the ragtime music of his day. Music historians say he was arguably the foremost jazz composer until Duke Ellington came on the scene. The Jupiter club was located in a basement just around the corner from Purcell's on Columbus Avenue, and like Purcell's it was also a black and tan club open to all races. With time Morton developed a very competitive attitude towards Sid LeProtti and tried to steal members from Purcell's house band with higher pay. However they all refused because Morton was known to be a perfectionist and somewhat dictatorial with his sidemen. Despite performing in a basement, Morton's band was sometimes as large as ten pieces. By the time Morton arrived in San Francisco, the Barbary Coast district was already under siege by the police department, which was in turn was fueled by a Hearst newspaper's crusade against the district. Morton, known for his brash and outspoken nature, quickly alienated the police department when he questioned why he could not acquire a dance permit for his club. When interviewed by Lomax in 1938, Morton described his meeting with the police captain. After insisting that he knew his rights about access to a dance permit, a police officer replied, "You heard what the captain said boy, we'll close you down if you allow dancing." Morton implies racial prejudice as a motivation by the police when he explains, "my place was black and tan – for colored and white alike." At that time many San Franciscans frowned