Marty "Alfred Molina" is a jazz musician, always a precarious source of livelihood even for the best-known performers. In this film, he is just barely getting by, living on the outskirts of a run-down town populated by Irish immigrants. Though this might be called a highly successful life for a jazz musician, it is hardly satisfying. He hangs out a bar called The Rose of Sharon and is friends with its irrepressible barmaid, Sheila "Maggie O'Neill". When Sheila introduces Marty to the ghostly inhabitants of a rocking chair, they embark on a series of adventures that result in satisfaction for all concerned - except for the bar's owner, who killed one of the ghosts "Marianne Faithfull" when she was among the living.
Marty (Alfred Molina) is a down-and-out jazz musician with colorful dreams of making it big, but right now he's living on the edge and making small money by giving music lessons to people who don't seem to want them.