At the age of five, a blind African-American boy is handed over to a brutal state home. Here Ludlow Washington will suffer for eleven years, until his prodigious musical talent provides him an unlikely ticket back into the world. Ludlow's pioneering flair will take him to New York and the very top of the jazz scene - where his personal demons will threaten to drag him back down to the bottom. Another rediscovered classic from the author of "A Different Drummer".