The sounds of the city are as important emotionally as its buildings and layout. There are many possible choices for city music � jazz, classical, hip-hop, rap, musicals�.We chose to do a short unit on jazz, the quintessential American city form. We introduced styles from ragtime to swing, Bebop and finally free jazz with examples from Scott Joplin who discovered the power of syncopation at the World�s Columbian Exposition in Chicago to Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie and Ornette Colman. We also discussed the blues form and used examples by Ma Rainey and Billy Holiday. Often the connections with the city are palpable within the music and the lyrics, as in Duke Ellington�s �Take the A-train� with its up-tempo, brassy dissonance deliberately echoing the clanking speed of the New York subways.
 

           We also chose an excerpt from Leonard Bernstein�s musical Candide, �Glitter and Be Gay� and a Blues from Langston Hughes, Elmer Rice and Kurt Weill�s Street Scene. West Side Story and Cabaret are other possible choices for musicals that tell the story of the city and its struggles.
 

           In Classical music, city operas that are worth discussing include Kurt Weill/ Bertolt Brecht�s Three Penny Opera or Mahagonny, and Igor Stravinksy/W. H. Auden�s The Rake�s Progress. (The eighteenth century Hogarth engravings on which The Rake is based make up a wonderful, didactic city text in itself depicting the debauchery of London.) For music that depicts city life in its use of instrumentation and cacophony, it might be useful to listen to Satie�s Parade or Antheil�s Ballet Mecanique (with invigorating sets by Fernand Leger, the quintessential artist of the modern city).