Ten-year-old Bud, a motherless boy living in Flint, Michigan, during the Great Depression, escapes a bad foster home and sets out in search of the man he believes to be his father-- the renowned bandleader, H.E. Calloway of Grand Rapids.

The true story of Ray Charles, one of the founders of rhythm and blues music and one of the first African-American recording artist to cross over to the pop charts.

Jazz is born in the African-American community of New Orleans but it grows up with the influence of ragtime, band music, spirituals, and the blues.

Just before World War II jazz continues its great popularity as demonstrated when Benny Goodman holds the first jazz concert ever at Carnegie Hall.

Looks at the Jazz Age, which began in 1917 and flourished until the mid-1920s, predominately in Chicago and New York.

Acoustic Rooster forms a jazz band with Duck Ellington, Bee Holliday, and Pepe Ernesto Cruz to compete in the annual Barnyard Talent Show against such greats as Thelonius Monkey, Mules Davis, and Ella Finchgerald. Includes glossary, notes on the characters and songs, and jazz timeline.

Jazz divides into cool and hot, traditional and modern, inthe decade after World War II.

By the 1960s, rock and roll is the musical phenomena and jazz drifts into the avant-garde, often used as a form of social protest.