‘We don’t want to be known as a jazz club.’ : Club’s New Format Strikes Sour Note With Jazz Fans

If persuaded to select a single description, one definition, Herb Jeffries will call himself a balladeer. As he is often wont to do, the 72-year-old tenor-baritone mentions his most famous song, “Flamingo,” a lilting ballad he sang with the Duke Ellington band in the 1940s.

“The only reason people associate me with jazz is that at one time in my life I sang with Ellington’s band,” the tall, dark singer said. “I’ve never been totally into jazz. I’ve been totally into music.”

Still, when Jeffries and his son, Robert, bought the ailing Carmelo’s in March, the local jazz community expected they would return the Sherman Oaks club to its halcyon days as one of the Valley’s most popular jazz hangouts, an always slightly run-down room where Sarah Vaughan or Carmen McRae might drop by to sit in on a set.

In the first few weeks after the Jeffrieses took over, audiences at Carmelo’s were indeed sprinkled with the likes of Los Angeles jazz musicians Spanky Wilson, Maurice Davis and Frances Coche.

There have been changes since.

The club is now called the Flamingo Music Center. Robert Jeffries said about $750,000 has been spent remodeling. The room looks newer and more plush than it ever has and features three stuffed flamingos spotlighted behind the stage.

There is also a difference in music. Look at the marquee on a given night and you may find anything from Turkish music to rock ‘n’ roll.

“Flamingo is a music center,” Herb Jeffries said. “We don’t want to be known as a jazz club. Sure we have jazz. But we’ve had rock bands in here; pop; Steve Allen, who does comedy, and opera on Sunday nights.

“I believe variety is what makes the big clubs go. That is the formula that we’re working on.”

That variety has irked loyal jazz fans who survive on a scant diet of two or three true jazz clubs in the Valley.

“There are fewer and fewer jazz places,” said Rheuben Allen, a fan, musician and owner the Sax Shop, a Studio City music store. It is Jeffries’ “business and he does have the right to do whatever he wants with it. It’s just that it had a good tradition as a jazz club. It seems a shame to change that.”

Carey Leverette, owner of Donte’s in North Hollywood, for 19 years perhaps the Valley’s premier jazz club, concedes that Jeffries’ switch to varied musical entertainment is a sign of the times.

“He’s not the only one. Everybody else is doing it,” Leverette said. “If it works for him, good for him. I’m sorry to see that jazz is not the premier commodity that it really is in the eyes of the public.

“When you can get a guy like Prince making $18 million a year and some of the greatest jazz players can’t even get a gig--something’s wrong there.”