All That AI Jazz

Painfully shy despite his exceptional talent, Eddy Marino plays drums, organ, and guitar, and experiences music as pure sensation and texture. He feels the breath of the trumpet, the touch of the keyboard, the percussion in his chest. Eddy has spent his musical life on the sidelines, serving as a session musician and substitute player for various groups. His mentor, retired professor Mr. Scott, recognizes Eddy's gift for intuitive understanding but worries that his reticence prevents him from finding his own artistic voice.

Luke Gregory is a brilliant but socially awkward junior who believes music's greatness can be reverse-engineered through mathematical analysis. Driven by a need to control and understand, he embarks on a year-long project analyzing six decades of popular music, creating comprehensive frameworks for harmonic progression, rhythmic patterns, and production techniques. He forms The Autumn Leaves with vocalist Lucy Sanders, who becomes both his romantic interest and his philosophical counterweight, constantly challenging him to value emotional presence over analytical optimization.

The story unfolds over the academic year leading to the Massachusetts High School Battle of the Bands. The story converges when Zoey Williams—a singer-songwriter preparing a deeply personal song about her immigrant grandmother—asks both Luke and Eddy for help.