The Cotton Club was a New York City nightclub from 1923 to 1940. It was located on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue (1923–1936), then briefly in the midtown Theater District (1936–1940). The club operated during the United States' era of Prohibition and Jim Crow era racial segregation. Black people initially could not patronize the Cotton Club, but the venue featured many of the most popular black entertainers of the era, including musicians Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Fats Waller, Willie Bryant; vocalists Adelaide Hall, Ethel Waters, Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Lillie Delk Christian, Aida Ward, Avon Long, the Dandridge Sisters, the Will Vodery choir, The Mills Brothers, Nina Mae McKinney, Billie Holiday, Midge Williams, Lena Horne, and dancers such as Katherine Dunham, Bill Robinson, The Nicholas Brothers, Charles 'Honi' Coles, Leonard Reed, Stepin Fetchit, the Berry Brothers, The Four Step Brothers, Jeni Le Gon and Earl Snakehips Tucker.
Duke Ellington was one of the original Cotton Club orchestra leaders.
Adelaide Hall, star of the Cotton Club
Cab Calloway was another of the original Cotton Club performers.
Ethel Waters starred at the Cotton Club
A nightclub is a club that is open at night, usually for drinking, dancing and other entertainment. Nightclubs often have a bar and discothèque with a dance floor, laser lighting displays, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who mixes recorded music. Nightclubs tend to be smaller than live music venues like theatres and stadiums, with few or no seats for customers.
Two DJs perform at the nightclub Space on the island of Ibiza in 2015
"The Cave" in the basement of the Gruenwald (later Roosevelt) Hotel, New Orleans opened in 1912; said by some to be one of the first nightclubs in the United States[by whom?]
The "Kakadu" (1919–1937), a Pre-World War II nightclub in Berlin, offered a bar, a dance floor, live music played by jazz band, and cabaret.
A disc jockey (DJ) mixing vinyl records on turntables (Inland Empire, 2009)