World musics remain popular in Vancouver today, and are part of both the highly successful annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival at Jericho Beach and the Commercial Drive countercultural/alternative district. Recently, Gandharva Loka World Music Instruments opened a store on Granville Island, with music and instruments from around the world. Jazz music came to Vancouver relatively early, in part because of the role of the city as a residence or turnaround for the typically African American/Canadian customer service employees of the railways (porters, stewards, waiters, cooks, trainmen). Another factor was the "Grand Tour" which brought Jazz celebres through Vancouver while en rote to somewhere else. A shantytown on Union and Prior Streets east of Main, known as Hogan's Alley after one its first black residents, became home to illicit music clubs, often harassed and shut down by the police. Despite its slum reputation, the neighbourhood was home to superb "session players", but it was not until later years that black musicians were allowed to play in the house bands of the city's mainstream dinner clubs. Over the years the city became home to a strong community of blues, funk and soul performers, and is known for being home to blues singer the late Long John Baldry. The city's blues scene also is home for other blues notables such as Koko Taylor, Jim Byrnes, Jerry Doucette, and Randy Bachman and funk/soul singers Lovena Fox, Theda Marie and others. It is noteworthy that neither the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra nor the Vancouver Opera have ever had music directors who were Canadian-born or female, whereas the Vancouver Cantata Singers and the Vancouver Chamber choir have been led by locally-born musicians. The largest of these are the Orpheum Theatre, the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Smaller venues include the concert hall of the University of British Columbia School of Music, the Vogue Theatre the Cultural Centre, the Italian Cultural Centre, two theatres of the Kay Meek Centre for the Performing Arts adjoining West Vancouver Secondary School, the Vancouver Academy of Music's auditorium, the Vancouver East Cultural Centre, Burnaby's Shadbolt Centre and the Michael Fox Theatre in Burnaby South Secondary School. Of the city's churches, Pacific Spirit United, St. Andrews-Wesley United, St. James' Anglican, and Christ Church Cathedral (Vancouver) frequently serve as concert venues. Bars that regularly host live music include The Railway Club, The Lamplighter, The Media Club, The Red Room, the Bourbon, Anza Club, The Astoria, The Biltmore, Pub 340, Venue (formerly the Plaza), the Rickshaw Theatre, Pat's Pub and the Admiral Pub.