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.
Music has such deep meaning for people in very, very different ways.
Machlin asks students to momentarily set aside their particular musical passions when they begin their broader study of music. 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. 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.