When it comes to music, Henry prefers classical and opera as opposed to "what young people are listening to these days." Abe, on the other hand, is all about that jazz. Their argument coincides with Henry's next case. The body of young jazz musician Isaiah "Izzy" Williams is found in a burnt-out car. There's no smoke in his mouth or nose, so Izzy didn't die in the fire. Lucas suggests he was strangled-possibly with a piano wire.
Izzy was the son of the "best musician you never heard of," Pepper Evans (guest star Frankie Faison). Izzy's sister, Ella, tells Henry and Jo that their father gave her brother something very valuable. Pepper is found playing for spare change at the train station. He says he gave his son a bunch of old reel-to-reel tapes. Apparently the fire burned so hot because they were highly flammable.
Abe is impressed that Henry met Pepper Evans. He raves about how he was a prodigy who played with the great Lionel Hubbard, the musician who wrote the wildly-popular hit "6 A.M." Henry and Jo head to Rudy's, where the owner says he didn't see Izzy the night he was murdered. Pepper's instrument case is found behind the bar. Rudy admits he stole it to pay off Izzy's tab, but insists he didn't kill him.
Henry inspects a stand-up bass and, because he has perfect pitch, determines that one of the strings is new. This means that the old one is likely the murder weapon. Rudy is hauled into the station, where he claims Izzy said he had proof that his father co-wrote "6 A.M." He would be entitled to decades' worth of royalties. With the audiotapes destroyed, there seems to be no way to prove whether Pepper did write it.
Lieutenant Reece refers Henry and Jo to Al Rainey (guest star James McDaniel), a music agent who she says fleeced several musicians, including her nephew. Rainey swears Pepper didn't write the song because he was there the night it was recorded. Henry notices that the hair on Rainey's arm has been singed off, but Rainey says that happened while barbecuing.
Henry and Jo find a cufflink with the initials "DB," possibly for Rainey's Dove Bird Records, in Izzy's car. This leads to Rainey's arrest. Henry re-examines Pepper's case and finds an audio reel hidden in the lining. At the station, they play what they think is the original recording of "6 A.M." for Rainey, who laughs as the tape appears to be blank.
Pepper confirms to Jo that he did write the song, but was cheated out of the royalties while tending to his sick baby daughter. He's startled by the photo of the cufflink, but tells Jo he doesn't recognize it. Henry turns to Abe to recover the audio tape, which he does by baking it in the oven! This process fuses the two layers together making it playable again. Sure enough, Pepper is on the recording explaining that he called the song "6 A.M." because that's when his daughter was born.
Reece prepares to arrest Rainey, until Jo tells her about Pepper's reaction to the cufflink. They realize that "DB" stands for "Dough Boy," which was Pepper's nickname for Lionel Hubbard. Too bad Hubbard's been dead for years. But his son, Bud Gray (who plays a stand-up bass), was at Dove Bird during their visit and was also playing at Rudy's the night Izzy was killed.
The police move to arrest Bud. Henry stops Pepper before he shoots his son's killer. He urges him to live for his estranged daughter, especially now that the world will know why he wrote "6 A.M." Sure enough, when Ella learns about the song, she reunites with her father for the first time in years. Gray confesses to the crime and that Rainey ordered him to do it. Case closed. As for Henry, he admits to Abe that he's discovered an appreciation for jazz. He even wants to learn how to play some on the piano.
