 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.