Clive Davis, the legendary music executive who created the careers of a succession of music greats, throws an annual bash every year in Los Angeles on the night before the Grammy Awards. This year, the party has a surreal cast. As music world royalty assembled Saturday night at the Beverly Hills Hotel for Davis’ normally festive concert and dinner, the corpse of Whitney Houston lay upstairs in her fourth floor room as police conducted an investigation into her untimely death.

“I’ve never been at a party like this,” one partygoer told Piers Morgan on CNN as the somber celebration got underway. On everyone’s lips was the guest who could not attend. As Tony Bennett prepared to sing a special medley in Houston’s honor, the elegantly turned-out throng was well aware that Houston’s remains were still in the building.

Houston, the reigning queen of pop and soul music from the 1980s to the late 1990s, was found dead Saturday, hours before she was to appear at the annual fest that Davis – Houston’s mentor – throws each year. Houston, 48, not only was to appear at the event, but Davis had told the Associated Press that she might also perform.

AP reported that Houston had attended rehearsals for the even on Thursday, coaching the singers Brandy and Monica. Reportedly, Houston looked “disheveled, was sweating profusely and liquor and cigarettes could be smelled on her breath.”

She performed at a pre-Grammy party with Kelly Price two days ago.

Houston’s incredible musical talent was accompanied by great beauty and – until her later, troubled years following her marriage to Bobby Brown – a poise and bearing that allowed her to cross over into movie stardom in such films as The Bodyguard and Waiting to Exhale.

The cause of her death is unknown though police said there were “no obvious signs” of criminal intent.

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