Origin and meaning of the word discoteque

[Marcio**]

"Adolf Hitler is partly responsible for disco. Dancing to recorded music, especially American-style jazz, was prohibited in war torn France during the late 1930's and 1940's. It was during the German occupation of France that the jazz clubs went underground. A Parisian jazz club of this type became known as la discotheque.

Discotheque is a combination of two words which mean "a musical record" and "library." So a discotheque is really a music library which had its origin some sixty years ago in France. The French discotheques survived World War II. Fifteen years later in the United States, Chubby Checker's "The Twist" and the associated dance began a dance craze that had been unheard of since the Lindy and the Jitterbug dance craze several decades before."






by Wavy Davy :)

[Nano]

I think this word was born in Europe as an effect of the difussion of recorded music, specially American music (and specially jazz dance records). European dance places that had caught with the jazz craze couldn't expect to have American jazz bands playing there too often (like they did in the USA), hence the necessity to just dance to the records. Add to that the number of Americans living in France before World War II and invading Europe later, and it sounds very logical. But then, it's just a theory that occured to me five minutes ago.
There's a wonderful French movie by Italian director Ettore Scola, Le Bal (1983), that takes place inside a dance place since the 1920s till the late 1970s, showing how the place and people changed according to the music of the moment. And it ends with disco...