By Jeanne McDonald

It’s always there, says Jerry Coker–a melody playing in his subconscious, one of thousands of songs he’s performed in smoky nightclubs or concerts or has fallen asleep to in lonely hotel rooms on the road. “I can be driving or watching a movie,” he says, “and I find myself fingering the keys. Then I turn off the subconscious and suddenly become aware that I’m hearing chord progressions. I’m actually practicing away from the horn!” Coker recalls a conversation with the great West Coast Cool Jazz trumpet player, Chet Baker, who was watching Coker’s fingers moving on the table between them as they talked. Baker leaned forward and said in awe, “You do that too?”

“The keys” Coker refers to are the keys on his tenor saxophone, which he has played all over the world with many of the best jazz artists in the business. Critics have praised his music for its lyricism and his ability to improvise melodies with phrases that segue seamlessly into one another. Now in his seventies, he still plays but gets more excited about teaching budding young musicians, many of whom are involved in the nationally renowned Jazz Studies Program that Coker instituted at the University of Tennessee in 1976, modeled after a wildly successful curriculum he had set up at Miami University years earlier.

Although he officially retired from UT in 1997, Coker continues to teach Jazz Piano and Analysis of Jazz Styles with the aim of “working an overnight revelation for the students so they can see where their careers are headed.” The program, which also covers Jazz History, Theory, Improvisation, Composition, Arranging and Pedagogy, has also had great success with its student and faculty jazz ensembles. And like Coker, his fellow teachers in the program are proven musicians: Program Coordinator Mark Boling; Donald Brown; Keith Brown; Rusty Holloway; Paul Haar; and Vance Thompson.