Awards

Jacobs School of Music Jazz Alumni Hall of Fame - 2016

About Jerry Coker

Jerry Coker began his career touring with the Woody Herman big band in 1953. He later attended Yale and earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Sam Houston State University before attending Indiana University as a doctoral student in woodwinds. While at IU, he led the Indiana University Jazz Ensemble on an historic U.S. State Department-sponsored tour of the Near and Middle East, playing more than 100 concerts from January to June of 1966. He went on to found the jazz programs at the University of Miami and the University of Tennessee. Coker is the author of 20 books and has recorded with Woody Herman, Nat Pierce and Clare Fischer as well as under his own name.