Nanette Hayes is a former child prodigy with a Master's Degree in French, but earns her living playing saxophone for spare change on New York's funkiest, meanest streets. It's how she likes it...until an undercover cop is murdered in her apartment. Suddenly, the law is on her case, a jazz-loving gangster is making moves on her heart, her buppie boyfriend wants to tie the knot, and Nanette finds herself on the trail of one of the music world's greatest mysteries.