Cheetah was a

nightclub A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music. Nightclubs gener ...

located at 1686

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

near 53rd Street in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The club opened on May 28, 1966, and closed in the 1970's. The financial backing was provided by Borden Stevenson, son of politician Adlai Stevenson, and Olivier Coquelin. Robert Hilsky and Russell Hilsky were associated with the club. According to Steven Watson's ''Factory Made: Warhol and the Sixties'', it "was the granddaddy of the big commercial disco". The musical ''

Hair Hair is a protein filament that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals. The human body, apart from areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles which produce thick terminal and f ...

'' was performed at Cheetah before becoming a major production on

. A live album by The Esquires, Mike St Shaw and the Prophets, and The Thunder Frog Ensemble was recorded there in 1966 and released by

Audio Fidelity Records Audio Fidelity Records, was a record company based in New York City, most active during the 1950s and 1960s. They are best known for having produced the first mass-produced American stereophonic long-playing record in November 1957 (although this ...

as ''Where It's At — Cheetah'' (1966, AFSD 6168). In 1968, the Cheetah reopened at 310 W 52nd near 8th Ave (formerly the Palm Gardens). Cheetah became a popular Latin-American dance club that helped popularize Salsa to mainstream America and is widely cited as the birthplace of

salsa music Salsa music is a style of Latin American music. Because most of the basic musical components predate the labeling of salsa, there have been many controversies regarding its origin. Most songs considered as salsa are primarily based on son montun ...

, or at least of the popular use of the term "salsa" to denote pan-

Latin music Latin music (Portuguese language, Portuguese and es, música latina) is a term used by the music industry as a catch-all category for various styles of music from Ibero-America (including Music of Spain, Spain and Portuguese music, Portugal) ...

brewing in New York City. On Thursday, August 26, 1971, the

Fania All-Stars The Fania All-Stars is a musical group formed in 1968 as a showcase for the musicians on Fania Records, the leading salsa music record label of the time. History Beginnings In 1964, Fania Records was founded in New York City by Jerry Masucci, ...

headlined the club and drew an overflowing and excited crowd that was later captured on film as ''

Our Latin Thing ''Our Latin Thing'' ( es, Nuestra Cosa Latina) was a 1972 documentary film directed by Leon Gast about the burgeoning Latin music scene in New York City. It focused on a concert put together by the management of Fania Records at Manhattan's Cheeta ...

''."Latin Music USA: Chapter 5: Our Latin Thing & the Fania All-Stars"

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(PBS) TV documentary, October 2009. The Fania All-Stars brought together the leading lights in Latin music styles (

descarga A descarga (literally ''discharge'' in Spanish) is an improvised jam session consisting of variations on Cuban music themes, primarily son montuno, but also guajira, bolero, guaracha and rumba. The genre is strongly influenced by jazz and it was ...

mambo Mambo most often refers to: *Mambo (music), a Cuban musical form *Mambo (dance), a dance corresponding to mambo music Mambo may also refer to: Music *Mambo section, a section in arrangements of some types of Afro-Caribbean music, particular ...

boogaloo Boogaloo or bugalú (also: shing-a-ling, Latin boogaloo, Latin R&B) is a genre of Latin music and dance which was popular in the United States in the 1960s. Boogaloo originated in New York City mainly among teenage African Americans and Latinos ...

, merengue,

folkloric Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging fro ...

) and presented a single concert drawing from these diverse influences. Although the term "salsa" had been used in Latin music dating back to at least Pupi Legarreta's 1962 LP ''Salsa Nova'', this modern combination of styles being presented at the Cheetah Club began to become popularly known under the umbrella term "salsa".

References

1966 establishments in New York City 1970s disestablishments in New York (state) Broadway (Manhattan) Midtown Manhattan Nightclubs in Manhattan Salsa music {{Manhattan-struct-stub