Gates said a search committee of a few professors to find a scholar to fill the chair has been formed. He said he hopes to have the chair filled by the middle of next year.

Jones said he would like the selected professor to be someone who "can bring the whole family of this music together"-- a generalist who appreciates all forms of black music and understands their common bond.

The main influences of black music, he said, are the black church, the African continent and Caribbean and Latin American influences.

Jones added that the "first line" of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Basie, should one day be regarded as the Brahmses, Beethovens and Bachs of black music.

Robert Levin, who introduces students to that "first line" in the popular Core class Literature & Arts B-80, "The Swing Era," said he hopes a black scholar is chosen.

"Harvard would do very well indeed to increase the number of women and minority faculty members," Robert Levin said. "And this is an important chair in which that could be done."

Gerald Levin declined to say whether any future endowments from Time Warner were in the works, stressing the spur-of-the-moment nature of the decision. But he didn't rule anything out.

"As a company, education is our highest obligation," he added.