The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor is a celebration and explanation of the jazz aesthetic as experienced by a saxophone wielding bear.  Cameos by Lester Bowie, Steve McCall, Ornette Coleman and others pepper the pages. 

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby draws a correlation between pop music and love.

Harmony of the World, a short story by Charles Baxter, explores the distinction between doing and feeling in life and in music.  The story is found in a collection bearing the same name.

The Exes by Pagan Kennedy follows a post-punk garage band through its artistic and romantic (and i don't mean that in a "romance novel" sort of way) adventures.

The Wishbones by Tom Perotta introduces readers to a wedding band guitarist who's afraid to get married.

Great Jones Street by Don Delillo asks readers to ponder the question: Where do art and commerce merge, if they were ever separate in the first place, in rock and roll?

Meet the Imperonsators! by Lynne Barrett is a short story set in 1986 that, again, uses a band format to explore relationships.  It can be found in her excellent collection The Secret Names of Women.

Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin is....well, damn, just read it.

Good luck with the class!
Tom