Dr. Keller Coker attended the University of Southern California for a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music in Jazz Studies. He also holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Early Music Performance from the same university.   Keller became aware of The School of Jazz at The New School which was founded in 1986, and was impressed by the big splash it made even though it was a very small program, and just how different it was,” citing the school’s innovative approach to teaching as the thing that separated it from other top music schools.

He ultimately became Associate Dean at the Jazz School, and since March 2017, he is the new dean at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City.

Keller himself is a trombone player. He had his first encounter with jazz at his local record store. “I had just started playing trombone so I just bought a cheap jazz record. Turned out to be this Charlie Parker record, and I put it on and couldn’t understand at all what was coming out of the speakers. I loved it!”

Although his doctorate is in 16th and 17th century music, the “main thrust” of his creative practice is in composing, arranging and conducting. He has been working on a show of “late 60s, early 70s bubblegum pop” with Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees fronting the show.

Keller has played with Motown groups including The Temptations, Four Tops and Smokey Robinson. “Every time I played with the Four Tops I cried at some point during the show. ‘I can’t believe I’m on stage with the Four Tops playing Ain’t No Woman Like The One I’ve Got.’” He has played with other notable musicians including New Orleans songwriter Allen Toussaint, Grammy winning jazz vocalist Kurt Elling, Motown vocalist Martha Reeves, country singer Lynn Anderson and the legendary Temptations.

Still keeping in touch with his classical training, he listens to a lot of “Franco Flemish Polyphony,” just for good measure, he says. He also attributes his annual ritual of listening to Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on Easter to a music history teacher he had as an undergrad. He said that every time he listens to it, “that piece is brand new.” “The biggest mistake that any of us can make as educators or fans is to start to talk about genre in any way that ranks or stratifies that’s a useless conversation.”

Keller has worked in the record business as a booking agent, performer and composer. In the 1990s he was co-founder of an “eclectic classical label” in Los Angeles called RCM. He has also produced recordings for Sony, Sierra and Teal Creek.

In his new position as Dean, Keller plans to work on a new Masters of Jazz and Contemporary Music Degree program. “We hope to have that up and running with an entering class in the fall of 2018,” he said. The new program would be the first master’s degree for Jazz. “Everybody who sees the layout for this is just blown away. I have current faculty who want to come back to school to take the master’s degree here when it gets online. I think it’s going to be a revolutionary graduate degree.”  Graduate degrees in jazz and contemporary music are commonplace for students who want a higher level of musical mastery and want to keep the option of teaching at the college level open.

He also added that the New School is the perfect place to “[build] programs that really fit the desires of young musicians today” and to “[honor] the work that they’ve done before they get here – even if that’s not the work that’s traditionally been honored at schools across the country.”

For now, Dr. Keller Coker is settling into his new position, “I know it’s a cliché, but this was a dream come true.” He says he plans to use everything that he’s learned from his experience of being in the industry.  “I can’t imagine another job like that, that would let me be all the things that I am.”