Ray 'Goose' Gander runs a jazz club in Chicago and he's coming under pressure from mobster Lou Cagan to sell booze at the club. Gander is a former musician who is in the business for the love of the music and wants nothing to do with selling the mob's liquor, but he's being backed into a corner. His protégé, trumpeter Eddie Moon, urges him to pack it in and go on the road but when Gander refuses, Eddie also talks him out of signing up with Cagan.