When Paul Machlin was attending high school in the early 1960s and, later, college at Yale, music education was decidedly anti-American. Jazz was seldom, if ever, the subject of study in U.S. colleges. Neither was Hank Williams. Nor, heaven forbid, Elvis Presley. Musicology 30 years ago, Machlin says, was more or less defined as the study of dead European composers. He has spent most of his academic career helping rewrite that definition. Recently named to the College's newest endowed chair, the Arnold Bernhard Professorship in Arts and Humanities, Machlin has not abandoned the classics since he wrote his thesis at Berkley on Wagner's The Flying Dutchman. But since then he has written an authoritative book about jazz pianist Fats Waller, lectured and written about the history of rock 'n' roll and joined a generation of scholars in exploring the genius of American music. "As far as the established academy was concerned 30 years ago, jazz and popular music were not objects worthy of academic inquiry," Machlin said. "It's now clear to us that the artifacts of popular culture are just as revealing, just as moving, in their own way, as the artifacts of high art. The more you know about Beethoven's music, the more you understand its cultural significance and origins, the more meaningful and profound the experience of listening to it will be. The same is true of a rap song. But that [recognition] was a long time coming." Machlin's research has focused on jazz and on Fats Waller in particular. In his 1985 book, Stride: The Music of Fats Waller, Machlin cast a critical eye on the music of the 1930s artist whom he first heard on his father's 78 rpm records as a child. Machlin asserted that Waller, despite his frivolity as a performer, was a serious artist who contributed much to the jazz medium. A consistent undercurrent of Machlin's research has been the idea that American popular music, much of it rooted in the oppressed experience of African Americans, has an important story to tell. When Machlin arrived at Colby in 1974 not a single course in American music was offered at the College. He capitalized on the 1976 bicentennial celebration to introduce a class on jazz. Before long he was teaching a course titled From Doo-Wop to Disco and supervising independent projects about blues guitarists Robert Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt. Today, students who come to his classes learn the intricacies of many kinds of musical composition and gain insights into the cultural context from which a song derives--in essence, "learning the language" of music. "One of the delights and also one of the challenges of teaching music is that people relate to music in such a profoundly personal way," Machlin said. "Music has such deep meaning for people in very, very different ways. Many people of my generation can remember the first time they heard `I Want to Hold Your Hand' by The Beatles." Machlin asks students to momentarily set aside their particular musical passions when they begin their broader study of music. "It's a challenge to get students to get beyond a particular feeling about a piece to think more abstractly about it," he said. "If they can begin to combine an emotional response with an analytical understanding, listening to music becomes more gratifying." Machlin is no theorist when it comes to evaluating the power of music. "Who ultimately knows why we react to a certain piece of music the way we do? I think it's important to trust those strong, instantaneous responses to music. Even though I want students to separate their emotional response to music from the contextual study, you don't want them to stay away from that emotional part for long. Listening to music is a sensual, pleasurable experience. That ability to move us is what makes music resonate so profoundly in our lives," he said. Performing is the best way to get to know music, Machlin says, which explains his vigorous enthusiasm for his job as conductor of the Colby Chorale. "Music is ultimately a performance art," said Machlin, who has led the chorale for 24 years. "Making music is great fun as well as being profoundly satisfying." The chorale is a wellspring for friendships and fosters a strong sense of esprit de corps, Machlin says. "My sense is that the tours we have been on have been very memorable experiences for students. They've been important to me." Machlin also considers his work with the chorale to be some of his best teaching: "It is teaching in its deepest, most fundamental sense. And it's different from a classroom because everyone is focused on the same goal," he said. I'm always amazed at the extraordinary effort students put in to their preparation."