At Chasen’s, It Was a Sea of Fabulous Glamour

The Scene: There may not have been a chorus line of Grammys, but the post-show A&M;/PolyGram party was packing them in at the shuttered Chasen’s, which reopens occasionally for select friends. A little chunk of Chasen’s and a huge white draped tent were decorated in party planner Colin Cowie’s vision of restrained fabulousness. All was white, white, white--white Japanese shoji screens, white French tulips and Calla lilies--except for what was black, a scattering of Mies van der Rohe furniture. Tres elegant. Tres ‘90s.

So There: PolyGram had high hopes for its 56 nominations, but the label group took home 13 statuettes, none of them in the coveted top four categories. “I don’t think we won as many as we thought, but that’s all right,” said PolyGram CEO Alain Levy. “The business is not about winning awards. It’s about building artists.”

Who Cares: Def Jam CEO Russell Simmons showed up at the black-tie event in blue-jean. Oh, yes. He skipped the Grammys. “I’ve seen really bad records win. They don’t know much about youth culture, especially black youth culture.”

And the Winner Is: Joan Osborne, the much-nominated singer who looked a bit dejected after failing to snag a single award. That didn’t make her undistinguished, however. “At least I was the biggest loser of the night,” she said. And besides, “It was nice to be part of this whole amazing glamorous thing I’m not used to.” Don’t feel bad, Mariah Carey was zero for six.

Who Else Was There: At least 2,500 industry folk in black with the occasional green-haired guest. Among them were Boyz II Men; Will Smith with his date, 3-year-old son Trey; Steven Weber; Russell Simmons; Danny Goldberg; John Tesh; Montell Jordan; Sheryl Crow; Ellen DeGeneres and the Bee Gees.

Peak Moment: Triple winner Stevie Wonder got up onstage with the Blue Plate Special swing band and belted out “Stormy Monday.” And what’s a heaven for?