Green’s Dictionary of Slang

cheap, improvised or ramshackle; thus jitney dance, a pay-per-dance or ‘taxi-dance’ dancehall.

1916		H.L. Wilson Somewhere in Red Gap 59: He [...] sells these jitney pianos and phonographs and truck like that.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 110: The Writer was a cheap Iconoclast with a jitney Intelligence.
1922		Morn. Tulsa Dly World (OK) 7 May 29/6: A ‘flapper’ [...] is one with a jitney body and limousine mind.
1933		S. Walker Night Club Era 203: There are [on Broadway] chow-meineries, peep shows for men only, flea circuses [...] jitney ballrooms and a farrago of other attractions.
1940		(con. 1917) S.J. Simonsen Soldier Bill 46: The old penny dances hall had progressed into the nickel dance hall – or the jitney wrestle.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 187: Any citizen of good repute who pays the license fee may operate any kind of gambling device from a jitney one-armed bandit up to a roulette wheel in a gilded gaming casino.