Dialogue flowed from the row of black shiny shoes tapping in tandem to the vibraphone mallets dancing across silver bars to the drummer back to the fluid notes of the keyboardist wagging his tongue at the audience: the musical conversation crafted by the three PHS jazz ensembles consisted of everything but talking.

PHS Jazz Band, Jazz Lab Band and Jazz Quartet performed their Winter Concert on Thursday, Nov 20 at 7:30 PM in the Beach School Auditorium directed by Dr. Andria Mullan. Composers of the pieces included John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Gershwin and Gershwin and Bill Evans.

This performance was the jazz groups’ first concert of the school year.

“We’ve worked so hard and practiced the music and it’s just so worth it when the band sounds good,” Mullan said. “Kids feeling confident and taking ownership of what they’re doing: that’s my favorite thing.”

Indeed, freshman Casey Kama said that the concert went very well and most enjoyed playing “Doxy” by Sonny Rollins, their first number. She attributed the quality of their performance to their rehearsals, although getting tired during them posed a challenge.

“The last piece [‘Jive Samba’] is kind of really hard as well,” Kama said.

Tali Pinkham, mother of Jazz Band member Andrew Pinkham, said the performance had excitement and energy.

“As a parent, I have a lot of gratitude for the arts education my daughters received in the Piedmont schools,” Pinkham said. “I am really looking forward to enjoying another four years of music through the experience of our freshman son, Andrew.”

Vocal soloist junior Anna Konstantopoulos and keyboardist senior Liam Schindler before the show both looked forward to performing “Morocco” by Russ Freeman.

“There are some songs that we groove on that are really cool that are not that interesting musically, but the groove makes them cool,” Schindler said.

Eighteen musicians, including Konstantopoulos, performed solos.

“When you’re on stage, the energy that you have with your group kind of brings it to life,” Konstantopoulos said.

The Jazz Quartet consists of senior Xavier Prospero on guitar, Hanke on bass, Schindler on keyboard, and senior Graham Dean on drums.

“[I’m excited] to impress all the fine honies with my dope jazz skills,” Dean said before the concert started.

The group began performing last year, and started as a side project. The group is available for private events.

This year the Jazz Band is a full-year class, instead of a semester class as it was last year.

“After we’ve had this whole semester to build on tone, intonation and working together as a group, I think we’ll be able to play tunes that are more sophisticated,” Mullan said.

Schindler likes having more time together to work.

“Being together as a group is really important to play songs in general,” Schindler said.

The Jazz Lab Band practices for around 1.5 hours once a week after school .

Other band endeavors include going to Safeway at 3:30 AM on Nov 21 to promote the PHS food drive on NBC and performing at an assembly at Beach School Nov 21 during the day.