Harlem's legendary Cotton Club becomes a hotbed of passion and violence as the lives and loves of entertainers and gangsters collide.

Mammy steps out for the evening. While she's away, the cats - in this case Tom and three of his alley cat friends - play. Play and perform rollicking jazz, that is.

A teenaged shoeshine boy urgently tries to raise the remaining amount of money he needs to purchase a secondhand bugle before 6p.m.