By Steve Mostyn, Alicia Keys' bass player

There were many delighted and thankful winners to be found on February 13 at the presentation of the 47th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Multi million selling recording artist Alicia Keys, who accepted 4 awards, was certainly one of them. But one of the proudest musicians on the Grammy stage on that night was Sydney born musician Steve Mostyn. Steve recently scored the bass player gig in Alicia's band and found himself on stage at The Staples Center backed by a 36 piece orchestra, conducted by music legend Quincy Jones.

Prior to his appointment with the Alicia Keys' band, Mostyn had made a name for himself playing with Mary J Blige, Puffy, Pink, Missy Elliot and Tweet. Going way back, Steve began his musical journey at St Leo's college, Wahrooga, where local music teacher Darryl Chute was (and still is) a huge inspiration. Mostyn played the Sydney club circuit developing his chops, and in the mid 90's moved into RnB and hip hop with his band Lovetown. In late '98 Mostyn went dream-chasing to New York City where for a time, worked at he Sam Ash music store. It was during Steve's time there, that he was discovered by a local gospel musician who invited him down to the church to have a play. Steve went down so well, it turned into a regular paying gig. Once Mostyn made a name for himself in that community, word got around. Many of the musicians backing America's leading R'nB artists have similar gospel band backgrounds.

Since 1998, Mostyn has been privileged to play some of America's most famous venues including Madison Square Gardens and Radio City Music Hall. One venue which has so far eluded him is the Sydney Entertainment Centre, however based on the current company he keeps, that might not be too far way. Steve was gracious enough to document his Grammy week for Australian Musician readers. This is how his week panned out …

DAY 1
Being asked to write an article for Australian Musician magazine was certainly an honour. I had hoped that maybe someone back home would be interested in my story. Big thanks must first go to my old friend and music teacher, Darryl Chute (Fountain Head music- a fine studio in Randwick,Sydney with a fine producer. Darryl will turn your idea into a masterpiece!- plug!) He's the guy responsible for forcing me to play bass at 12 years of age for what might have been Australia's first high school jazz fusion group. Thanks Mate!. I am the bassist for Alicia Keys. I'm on my way to JFK airport in New York to fly to LA for rehearsals for a performance on the Grammys. I have been living in NYC for the past 6 years. When we get to LA we will met up with the 36 piece orchestra which will be playing behind us, to be conducted by Mr Quincy Jones! Pretty cool gig I reckon. The core band consists of MD/Keys Onree Gill who is an incredible musician and arranger. Artie White-Guitar, Paul John-drums and Dave Watson -Sax along with myself on bass. We will be performing "If I Aint Got You". First thing will be sleep though as we have been in long rehearsals for a tour due to start on the 23rd of Feb.

DAY 2
First day of rehearsal at Center staging, a popular rehearsal space in Burbank for the big names. As we arrive I bump into some muso friends of mine who are rehearsing with Usher's band and some other friends rehearsing with Destiny's Child for their upcoming tour. I also poked my head in on Billy Idol's band! First things first and that is to check out my new basses and rig. I use and highly recommend Warwick basses and amps. I am now the proud owner of two 6 string Streamer Stage 1 basses, a wide neck thru-bass that sounds awesome and plays like a dream. Passive or active for old and new school sounds. Playing with Alicia requires both, so this bass along with two Extreme 100w heads and two Warwick 411 4X10 cabs does the job beautifully. Just such an awesome, big clean sound.

Rehearsal gets underway and the orchestra sounds great. We are being conducted at this time by another great musician from New York, Ray Chew. We are now going to segue into "Georgia" and will be joined by Jamie Foxx who played Ray Charles in the movie "Ray'. This is the section that will be conducted by Quincy Jones. I believe he will be at the rehearsal at the Staples Center tomorrow. After many breaks (union orchestra!) and many changes, rehearsal is over and sounding great. Back to the hotel.

DAY 3
Rehearsal at the Staples Centre
Today we are to run through the arrangement with Alicia for the cameras to get an idea of what the performance will look like. We arrive at the spot and after a serious security check (They should use these guys at the airports) we were hurried through to the band dressing room where we were to "hurry up and wait!" It would be a few hours before we were to go on so I felt a little walk around in search of coffee was in order. I have an all access pass so why not? I end up finding a coffee urn in someone's dressing room that is being guarded by a little lady. I ask her if I can go in and get a cup. She tells me someone is in there but she'll have a cup bought to me. As promised she shows up with the cup and tells me that Tim McGraw's manager made it for me. I guess Tim McGraw was trying on a few cowboy hats! Seriously, I got to met him later and he was a lovely guy and a great performer too.

Back in our dressing room nothing really much going on until the door swung open and a guy looking like he worked for the secret service walked in, followed by none other than Mr Quincy Jones! He is a such a cool guy and I thought how awesome is this, we were all just chatting about music and some of our favourite albums that "Q" has produced. This goes down as a great moment for me, he is such an inspiration. When we get to rehearse with him you really see and feel a difference when he is conducting. And as he hadn't heard the arrangement before it was so cool to see how such a pro he was, just reading the chart and grooving it the way he would. Excellent. Rehearsal goes well and its back to the hotel.

DAY 4
Another rehearsal back at Center Staging. This will be Jamie Foxx's first rehearsal with the band. We run it through and it all sounds great. He's a very talented actor and singer. But as expected , major changes were made to the bridge of 'Georgia', changing it from the classic feel to a more hip hop, funk feel. Then it would resolve back to the original feel in the last chorus. Easy enough but without having the man at rehearsal who was to conduct this new groove ("Q"), we felt a little uneasy. Shouldn't have worried though as Quincy had heard a recording of the new arrangement a couple of hours before the show and had it locked! End of rehearsal and a day off the next day (Saturday). Sunday was Grammy day.

DAY 5 Grammy Day!
We left the hotel at around 9am as this was to be an all day affair. 'Hurry and wait' basically! The band were given one of those private box seats normally set aside for corporations to watch the basketball games ( usually held at the Staples Centre). It was so cool as we could watch the setups and the awards that are given out before they are televised. As we were going to be the second act of the night, we were hustled down to Alicia's dressing room after about 5 hours of sitting around. There we met and congratulated her on already winning two Grammys. She held a quick prayer and off we went. It all seemed to go by pretty quickly but the performance went off without a hitch! Phew!! I also remember seeing some familiar faces in the front rows … James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Gwen Stefani.

Backstage after the performance was my first glimpse at the madness going on. I got to meet a bunch of people such as Adam Clayton from U2, and rubbed shoulders with the rest of U2, James Brown, Black Eyed Peas, Franz Ferdinand, Tyra Banks and also watched U2's performance from backstage, which was hot! I also saw J-Lo and Marc Antony's performance too, which was ummm interesting? Anyway just hanging around backstage was a really interesting experience and playing at the most prestigious music show of the year was probably one of the best "one off" gigs I have done! You'd think that after that we would have all gone to a crazy big party. After all, Alicia won 4 Grammys in total. Well we didn't. It was off to an Italian restaurant to eat, and off to bed. Long day.

If I could throw a few thanks and mentions to some people (as if I had won an award) it would go to my Mum and Dad (Jan and Graham Mostyn) the most supportive people in the world, my brothers Andrew, Tim and Danny. My ol' music teacher and mate, Darryl Chute, Alicia's MD, Onree Gill, all the folks at Warwick Basses USA and my beautiful girlfriend Jennifer.