Results for "Keaton Royer"

Musician

Keaton Royer

Winner of the outstanding Soloist Award from Downbeat Jazz Magazine, Keaton Royer studied jazz theory and classical piano with Kurt Ellenberger in Grand Rapids, MI.  From middle school through high school, he played piano in the Northview (MI) High School Jazz Ensemble.  He polished his musical skills at the renowned Interlochen Arts Academy and then enrolled at the University of Michigan, where he earned at BFA in Jazz Studies, concentrating on composition and improvisation with the internationally acclaimed pianist Geri Allen.  While at U. of M., Keaton performed with many jazz greats, including Lee Konitz, Robert Hurst, Curtis Fuller, Buster Williams, and Wendell Harrison.  Based in Ann Arbor, he performs and records with various bands and works as a musical accompanist in the University of Michigan Department of Dance.

Article: Jazz in Long Form

He Blinded Me With Jazz: The Surprising Jazz DNA in the Music of Thomas Dolby

by Kurt Ellenberger
March 30, 2026

I. Introduction Thomas Dolby is one of the most prominent and recognizable synth pop artists of the '80s. His carefully crafted brand as the bookish, bespeckled “mad synthesizer scientist" was perfect for the time period when MTV emerged as a dominant force in the music industry. MTV made the music video an essential part of an ...

Video

"Budapest by Blimp" by Thomas Dolby

Featuring the music of Keaton Royer
Duration: 4:05
March 30, 2026

This is a recording of my former student, pianist Keaton Royer, and his trio performing “Budapest by Blimp,” a deep cut by synth-pop icon Thomas Dolby. I gave them nothing but a simple leadsheet and asked them to create their own arrangement with no further instructions. No one knew whose tune it was.

Since I first heard Dolby’s music in 1982—before “She Blinded Me With Science” made him famous—I kept noticing something unusual in the background: sophisticated jazz harmonies and melodic devices woven so naturally into synth-pop that most listeners never noticed them. Over the years I kept returning to his catalogue, hearing the same subtle jazz DNA again and again. When “Budapest by Blimp” came out in 1988, it stopped me in my tracks. The harmonies were so rich, nuanced, and perfectly paced that I knew this was no casual “dabbling.” No one lands on chords like these by happenstance or sheer luck.

That realization eventually led to this article. After analyzing the jazz elements in three very different Dolby tracks, I wanted to take the idea one step further and bring the music full circle. So I made a leadsheet of “Budapest by Blimp” and wanted to send it to two of my former students—one in the U.S. and one in Europe—asking each trio to treat the tune as if it had always been a jazz standard. Budgets being what they are, we only have the American version by Keaton Royer and his trio for now, but I hope the European one will follow someday.

For me, this kind of inquiry is very satisfying. It is akin to the concept of evolution: the Jazz bird, let’s call it Aves Bebopius Americanus, migrates into new territory and, after several generations, no longer looks quite the same. Yet you can still see the family resemblance. In Dolby’s music the original Aves Bebopius Americanus has evolved into something new—Aves Dolbyus Synthius—era-defining pop that is quietly, beautifully tinged with jazz. That sweet spot where genres surreptitiously borrow from and enrich each other is exactly where I love to work, and I hope this little experiment helps bring those hidden connections to a wider audience in a way that feels both understandable and compelling.