At the Paramount theater on March 30, five amazing high school bands put on a benefit concert known as Hot Java Cool Jazz that left the crowd standing and cheering.
Mountlake Terrace Jazz 1, along with jazz bands from Edmonds-Woodway High School, Ballard High School, Garfield High School, and Roosevelt High School put on an astounding night of jazz in Seattle.
The 17th annual show was nearly sold out. All the proceeds from the ticket sales will go straight to the participating school music programs, including Terrace’s. Starbucks, the major sponsor event, brought the name “Hot Java.”
According to the Starbucks website, “Since 1995, Starbucks Hot Java Cool Jazz has raised more than $290,000 for local school music programs.”
The night started off with the jazz band from the only other school in the Edmonds School District, Edmonds-Woodway. There was much excitement for the jazz band from Ballard, the only school that was in their year at Hot Java Cool Jazz.
Mountlake Terrace was the fourth school to perform, following the intermission. They played four songs during their performance.
The first song was “Hey You,” written by Terrace’s own Katilyn Martin. Faul told the crowd how he  “heard about this crazy singing girl in the school newspaper.”
He went on to say that they then worked to turn Martin’s song in to one that would show off Martin’s vocals along with the band’s instrumental skills as she sang with the band in the wonderful performance.
Taylor Griffin wowed the crowd with his piano solo during the next song titled “The Kid From Red Bank” by composer Neal Hefti.
The next song to be played was “Sky Blue” composed by Maria Schneider. Faul was a big fan of this song, as he said, “I think it might be my favorite song in the whole world.” His sense of humor showed when he then said, “It’s really scary doing it with your band because they might screw it up.”
Terrace did Faul proud with an incredible performance of the song. Lucy Schermer traded in her saxophone during this song for a flute, which she soloed with.
The last song that Terrace did was the one that the crowd went wild for. The Brazilian song “Tico Tico” featured drummer Ryan Leppich and guitarist Kyle Scherrer.  After the last note was played, the crowd got up on their feet and awarded Jazz 1’s incredible performance with a standing ovation.