Final Note in Dirge : Carey Leverette, Founder of Donte’s Jazz Club, Dies

Carey Leverette, the founder, owner, manager, booking agent, dishwasher and trash man at Donte’s--probably the oldest continuing jazz joint in Los Angeles--was found dead in his cluttered office Wednesday.

His death at age 63 was the final note in a dirge that began months ago when Leverette, struggling against mounting bills and diminishing business, realized that he could no longer keep the venerable North Hollywood club alive.

His body was found by his son-in-law, saxophonist Dick Spencer, just a day after escrow was scheduled to close on the sale of the shopworn nightspot to Japanese businessman Koichi Akemoto.

“I thought he wouldn’t last a month after he sold it,” said pianist Ross Tompkins, a friend and frequent performer at the club on Lankershim Boulevard. “That place was his whole life.”

Had Been Ill

While no official cause of death was listed, friends said Leverette--who had a long history of problems with alcohol--had been ill in recent months and had planned to check into a hospital within the next few days.

Reared in Manhattan, educated at Fordham University and seasoned as a Marine combat veteran on Guadalcanal, Leverette was coming off a career as a dancer and choreographer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios when a distant love affair with music led him to open the club in June, 1966.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he recalled later. “I was in charge of talent, but I didn’t even know enough to spell their names on the marquee.”

But the public liked the place, and the names Leverette was booking were soon big enough to be familiar to everyone--even Leverette.

Big Bands

There were the big bands of Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Count Basie, Woody Herman and Stan Kenton; the saxophones of Al Cohn and Zoot Sims; the horns of Dizzy Gillespie and Chuck Mangione; the pianos of Adam Makowicz and Teddy Wilson.

“But the place began to run out of luck and money,” jazz critic Leonard Feather said. “Other clubs started coming up. I think he was the victim of bad luck and even bad management.”

The Internal Revenue Service shuttered the place at least once, and Leverette’s financial woes became legend.

Some of the musicians complained that they were paid late, if at all (Leverette denied this) and one musician, reminded of the club’s “homey atmosphere,” responded off the record: “It’s like the home where your parents abused you but you still keep coming back for the holiday.”

‘Tough Times’

But other musicians, like Tompkins, praised the gruff, bearded proprietor as a “generous” man who was simply the victim of “tough times in recent years.”

The names on the marquee got smaller and smaller, and so did the crowds.

“Toward the end, he had to do everything himself--buy the food, wash the dishes, fill the salt and pepper shakers and take out the trash,” Feather said. “The place had really gone downhill.”

Last month, a group of musicians and faithful patrons packed the place for one last time--in a “Tribute to Donte’s.” Chuck Findley was there on trumpet. Tompkins played piano. Sherman Ferguson was on drums. Neal Hefti was in the audience.

Last Saturday, the club closed after its final night under Leverette’s management. After tidying things up a bit, Leverette retired as usual to his bed in the tiny, littered office.

Small Kitten

He got in touch with friends on Monday. But after no one had heard from him Tuesday, Spencer called police. Officers broke in Wednesday to find Leverette dead in bed, alone except for a small kitten he had recently befriended.

“He was always collecting a stray dog or cat,” Tompkins’ wife, Annie, said Wednesday. “Now that latest cat, E-Flat, needs a home.”