ACC statement: Remembering Bob Keller
The Association of Computational Creativity are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Professor Robert M. Keller, who passed away on September 13th 2020.
Bob gave so much to the computational creativity community, as a good friend and mentor to many and a strong supporter of our conference series (ICCC). Bob was a regular participant in our conferences ever since they started back in 2010, as well as in workshops prior to the conference series. He always had something to contribute with papers, demos, posters and conversations, and was always available to review.
He was also a great person. It was always wonderful to hear what he’d been up to and to have the pleasure of his intelligent and entertaining company. We loved to see him with his wife Noel, who joined us for many social events.
Bob worked on the Impro-Visor system for many years, and this work was of huge significance in computational creativity research.
https://www.cs.hmc.edu/~keller/jazz/improvisor/
Bob’s Impro-Visor system is one of the main contributions in computational jazz improvisation. Here is a fascinating video of when Bob and Impro-Visor met up with Al Biles and Biles’s GenJam system for a jam:
Of course, because he wanted to help rather than compete, Impro-Visor teaches students, as well as having options to solo, accompany, trade fours, etc. Rather like Bob himself, in fact.
We will remember Bob at our next ICCC conference (Mexico, 2021), recognising his contributions and celebrating his memory.
The world will be a poorer place without Bob Keller. He was a kind, genuine, delightful person and he will certainly be missed.
RIP Bob
If you wish to record your own personal tribute to Bob, there is an “In Memorium” page set up by Harvey Mudd College [1], with tributes pouring in from past colleagues, students and friends. This memorial page also notes that:
“The family requests that contributions in Bob’s honor be made to the Jazz Education Network’s Scholarship Program, the American Brain Tumor Association, and the Sierra Club Foundation.”
[1] In Memoriam: Harvey Mudd Remembers Bob Keller
Harvey Mudd College
https://www.hmc.edu/in-memoriam/bob-keller/
[2] In memoriam: Robert Keller, Harvey Mudd Computer Science Professor
The Student Life (the newspaper of the Claremont colleges)
https://tsl.news/in-memoriam-robert-keller/
[3] Bob Keller RIP
John Elliott, jazz musician and friend of Bob’s
https://jaelliott24.wordpress.com/2020/09/18/bob-keller-rip/
We remember Bob’s contributions to computational creativity research events:
- Rachel Goldstein, Andy Vainauskas, Margareta Ackerman, and Robert M. Keller. Mindmusic: brain-controlled musical improvisation In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC’19), Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, 2019.
- Nicholas Trieu and Robert Keller. JazzGAN: Improvising with generative adversarial networks. In Proceedings of MUME 2018 – The Sixth International Workshop on Musical Metacreation [received BEST PAPER AWARD]. 2018.
- Joseph Yaconelli, and Robert M. Keller. Discovery and Utilization of Jazz Motifs for Computer-Generated Solos. In Proceedings of Computer Simulation of Musical Creativity. 2018.
- Daniel D. Johnson, Robert M. Keller, and Nicholas Weintraut. Learning to Create Jazz Melodies Using a Product of Experts In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC’17), Atlanta, GA, 2017.
- Zachary Kondak, Mikayla Konst, Carli Lessard, David Siah, Robert M. Keller. Active Trading with Impro-Visor. In Proceedings of MUME 2016 – The Fourth International Workshop on Musical Metacreation. 2016.
- Robert Keller. Continuous improvisation and trading with Impro-Visor In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC’12), Dublin, Ireland, 2012.
- Robert Keller, August Toman-Yih, Alexandra Schofield, and Zack Merritt. A creative improvisational companion based on idiomatic harmonic bricks In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC’12), Dublin, Ireland, 2012.
- Greg Bickerman, Sam Bosley, Peter Swire, and Robert M. Keller. Learning to create jazz melodies using deep belief nets In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC’10), Lisbon, Portugal, 2010.
- Robert M. Keller. Automated jazz improvisation In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computational Creativity (ICCC’10), Lisbon, Portugal, 2010.
- Robert M. Keller, David Morrison, Stephen Jones, Belinda Thom, and Aaron Wolin. A computational framework enhancing jazz creativity In Proceedings of the 3rd Joint Workshop on Computational Creativity, ECAI 2006, Trento, Italy, 2006.