A 10 year old gifted boy (Christopher Marquette) wants to be a jazz pianist much to the chagrin of his more classical oriented piano instructor (Carol Kane). With his mother's (Polly Draper) help, he is an underage regular at a local nightspot, where he is teamed up with a sax superstar (Gregory Hines). Both come to learn that each suffers from Tourette's Syndrome (thus the film title). The older man has developed mannerisms to cover up his own fallibilities and resents the boy and his mother's acceptance of the disease. James McCaffery appears as the older musician's father, who has not really accepted his son's odd behavior. Bill Nunn and Tony Shalhoub also appear as gutter-mouthed bartenders, who get the two musicians together initially.
