A group of music professors, including Frisbee (Danny Kaye) and Magenbruch (Benny Goodman), are writing an encyclopedia of music. A pair of window washers introduces the duo to a pioneering musical form called jazz. Frisbee and Magenbruch start going to nightclubs to hear the new sound and become involved with club singer Honey Swanson (Virginia Mayo), who is running from police because they want her to inform on her gangster boyfriend, Tony Crow (Steve Cochran).