The Fifth Bar of Heaven

Jazz in the Afterlife

CHARACTERS

LOUIS ARMSTRONG – joyful, wise, grounded in the roots of jazz. A warm storyteller with a gravelly voice and a trumpet always nearby.

DUKE ELLINGTON – elegant, articulate, always dressed like royalty. He speaks in melodic phrases, every word polished.

CHARLIE PARKER (BIRD) – volatile and brilliant, with a twitchy intensity and bursts of laughter. Quick with his sax and even quicker with his wit.

MILES DAVIS – cool, cryptic, modernist. Always half in shadow. Speaks with clipped phrases, but every word matters.

JOHN COLTRANE – meditative, intense, spiritually radiant. He listens more than he speaks, but when he does, the room leans in.

SETTING
A floating, timeless jazz club called The Fifth Bar, located somewhere between the outer rings of Saturn and the infinite silence beyond time. A ghostly stage glows center. Five stools. Instruments drift in the air nearby, shimmering with light. No audience. No clocks. Just presence.

Lights up. The sound of faint modal harmonies, distant horns, and cosmic reverb. One by one, the legends appear.

LOUIS (appearing, smiling wide)
Well now… would you look at this. Ain’t no New Orleans, but it sure swings. Smells like heaven, too.

(He picks up his trumpet. It glows softly.)

DUKE (entering with grace)
Welcome to The Fifth Bar, gentlemen. The last place before silence. Or the first note of the next chorus—depending how you hear it.

BIRD (pacing, restless)
What is this? Some celestial jam session? No charts? No whiskey? No women?

Man, this afterlife got rules or what?

MILES (from the shadows)
Ain’t no rules here, Bird. Just echoes. And questions.

COLTRANE (appearing last, almost floating)
We’re here because we played like our lives depended on it. (beat) Maybe they did.

LOUIS
All I ever did was blow my horn and try to make folks happy. That’s what jazz was. A way to keep the devil off your back.

DUKE
Jazz was elegance. It was a crown. A way to show the world we were kings… even when they called us boys.

BIRD
Man, jazz was a drug. A jolt. A shot in the arm when the world was too square to swing. I didn’t plan those changes—I heard ‘em, and I chased ‘em down.

MILES
Nah. You burned ‘em down. But I built somethin’ after. Cool. Space. The break in the line.

COLTRANE (quietly)
I only ever wanted to speak to God. (pause) Or maybe… be spoken through.

(A long silence. Each man looks into the space between them—memory, regret, recognition.)

LOUIS (grinning)
Ain’t it somethin’? We all came from the same roots. Same blues. Same dirt. But look how far we stretched the tree.

DUKE
Some of us orchestrated stars. Others tore holes in the sky just to see what light leaked through.

BIRD
Hell, I just played fast and hoped my fingers caught up to my ideas.

MILES (sharply)
You were the door. But I walked through it with my own horn.

COLTRANE
We weren’t playing solos. We were sending messages. Some people got ‘em. Some people still ain’t ready.

DUKE
And what of legacy? Do they remember what we stood for?

LOUIS (shrugs)
Some do. Some don’t. Doesn’t matter. Long as they feel something when that downbeat drops.

BIRD
Legacy’s a trap. I didn’t come here to be remembered. I came here to be free.

(Suddenly, a floating horn plays a phrase—soft, futuristic. It sounds like Trane… but isn’t. The men all listen.)

COLTRANE (eyes closed)
That’s Brecker. (beat) He found the door I left open.

MILES (nods)
And made his own keys.

MOVEMENT II: Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm

After a long, meditative silence from the end of the last movement, DUKE ELLINGTON stirs, eyes gleaming.

DUKE
You know what gets lost sometimes? In all the talk of genius, of sound, of suffering (He leans forward slightly, like a conductor readying a cue.) The song. The shape of a melody. A line so sweet it makes your heart lean in… like it remembers something it forgot it loved.

LOUIS (grinning)
Now you talkin’, Duke. That’s the truth right there. You give me one good melody, I don’t care what key we in, what tempo we at — I’m home.

(He taps his trumpet softly like a dog who’s learned a trick.)

BIRD
Melody’s just the bait. You gotta wrap it around some heat, or it don’t mean a damn thing. (He clicks his fingers in fast 16ths, a blur of rhythm.) It’s the rhythm that sets it loose.

MILES (cool, quiet)
Too much melody’s like talkin’ too much. I’d rather leave a hole and let the audience fall in.

COLTRANE (softly, with reverence)
Melody is breath. Rhythm is heartbeat. Harmony is… mystery. (He looks out into the stars beyond the bar.) When they align… you don’t play the music. The music plays you.

(A silence. Then a soft musical motif — one note, repeated, passed from instrument to instrument. They’re not playing, but the sound moves as if they were thinking it into being.)

DUKE
Harmony, now there’s a subject. I spent a lifetime building it — layering it, sculpting it. (He holds out his hands as if cupping something invisible.) You take twelve notes and build a cathedral out of them.

LOUIS
Yeah, but you ever see folks dance in a cathedral?

(They laugh — even Miles smirks.)

BIRD
Harmony’s where you hide the mess. You break it just right — it cries.

MILES
Harmony’s cool. But rhythm… rhythm’s the deal.

(He leans back. A pulsing beat begins, subtle, like footsteps in a dream.)

COLTRANE (to himself)
What is rhythm in a place without time?

DUKE
Even here, there’s a pulse. Not a clock… but something older.

(He places his hand on his chest.)

LOUIS
Call it swing. Call it the backbeat of the universe.

(Now, the instruments begin to glow faintly. Each man lifts his — not to play, but to gesture with it. A call-and-response sequence unfolds: melody from Louis, a harmonic ripple from Duke, a rhythmic fragment from Bird. Miles leaves space. Trane bridges them.)

BIRD
What are we doing?

MILES
Feelin’.

COLTRANE
Becoming.

DUKE (smiling)
Gentlemen… This is counterpoint. This is agreement through tension.

LOUIS
It’s jazz, baby.

(The motif coalesces into a single, floating phrase. Then fades.)

COLTRANE (to the group)
Melody is the voice. Harmony is the mind. Rhythm is the body. But what connects them?

(A pause. Nobody answers. The stars pulse gently.)

DUKE (quietly)
Maybe that’s what we’re here to find out.

[Lights dim slightly. The movement ends with a slow fade into the next silence — a rest before the next phrase.]

MOVEMENT III: Inspiration – Where the Music Comes From

The lights rise again on The Fifth Bar, still shimmering. A low celestial drone hums beneath everything, soft and persistent like the breath of space. The five men sit in stillness, instruments close, the last phrase from Movement II still lingering in the air like a scent.

LOUIS (gazing out)
You know where I first heard music? A rusty ol’ riverboat floatin’ past the levee. Kid was blowin’ a cornet with holes in it — sounded like God whisperin’ through a tin can.(He chuckles) That sound hit me in the chest like lightning in slow motion. Didn’t even know what it was — but I knew.

DUKE (softly)
For me, it was my mama. Sunday mornings. She’d play these little hymns on an out-of-tune upright while the light came in just right through the curtains. (beat) Elegance was never about money. It was about grace.

BIRD (gruff, eyes darting)
I got mine from need. Didn’t care about curtains or boats. Just needed to feel something that didn’t make me wanna break windows. (beat) I was twelve when I heard Lester. Thought I was hallucinating. From then on, it was like…every note I wasn’t playin’ was tryna crawl out of me.

MILES (nods slowly)
I was jealous. All those cats in East St. Louis sounded like the future already happened and I missed it. So I made my own.

(He lights an invisible cigarette. It glows faint blue in his fingers.)

COLTRANE
I heard something once… not with my ears. After my father passed. (His voice softens, becomes barely audible) The house was quiet… but not quiet. Like the air itself was hummin’. I didn’t know it then, but that was the sound I’d spend the rest of my life chasing.

(They sit with this. Each man looking into their own memory, or beyond it.)

DUKE
It’s funny, isn’t it? People think inspiration is loud. Flashy. A lightning bolt. But it’s usually quiet. Like a ripple before the wave.

LOUIS
Or a gut punch from the blues.

BIRD
Or a mistake that turns into a doorway.

MILES
Or silence so good it scares you.

COLTRANE
Inspiration isn’t something you have. It’s something you listen for.

(A hush falls again. Then—one by one—the instruments rise and float into a circular formation above them, glowing softly.)

DUKE
Gentlemen…what’s it mean that we’re still chasing it? Even here?

BIRD (smirking)
Maybe inspiration don’t die.

MILES
Or maybe we didn’t finish the song yet.

COLTRANE (reverent)
Maybe inspiration is what brought us here. Not death. Not legacy. Not ego. Just… that same little whisper we heard as kids.

(The lights slowly dim. The instruments return to their places. A faint tone like a distant hymn plays as the scene closes.)

MOVEMENT IV: Spirituality & The Sacredness of Sound

The Fifth Bar is quieter now, almost reverent. The stars outside pulse slowly. The air is charged, but not with electricity — with presence. COLTRANE stands alone center stage, head bowed slightly. The others sit, watching.

COLTRANE
They said I played like I was praying. I never denied it. Each note… was a syllable. Each phrase… a mantra. You don’t always know what you’re saying when you pray. You just know you have to say it. (He looks up at the others.) When I played, I wasn’t trying to impress. I was trying to dissolve. To become… part of something I could never name.

LOUIS (softly)
I never thought of it that way. To me, music was joy. Laughter with a little tear in it. But maybe joy is a kind of prayer.

DUKE
When I composed, I thought of my people. Their strength. Their sorrow. Their style. I gave them a sound to walk tall to. That was my temple. And I was the preacher at the piano.

BIRD (murmuring)
I didn’t have no religion. Church never wanted me. But when I got deep in a solo — like really deep — it felt like… (He hesitates, searching.) …like I was forgiven.

MILES
I don’t trust God. But I trust silence. Same thing, far as I’m concerned.

(The lights flicker slightly as if in response to Miles’ line. A slow hum begins — not music, but a vibration.)

COLTRANE (to Miles)
You trusted something, man. Even your silence had shape. You played like you were chiseling marble with lightning.

(Miles shrugs, but says nothing. The hum grows into a low, pulsating drone.)

DUKE
There’s a reason people cry when they hear a single note, held just right. It’s not about skill. It’s about spirit.

LOUIS
I once saw a blind girl in Memphis start dancing when I hit a high C. Didn’t even know where she was — just felt it in her feet. That wasn’t me. That was the Spirit movin’ through my horn.

COLTRANE
Sound is sacred. It’s the first thing that happened after creation. “Let there be light” — sure. But before that…? There was a vibration.

(The drone stops. Silence. They sit in stillness.)

BIRD (quietly)
You ever wonder if the reason we kept playing… Was ‘cause we were scared of what we’d hear if we stopped?

(The silence stretches. No one moves.)

DUKE
I think…I think we were listening for something older than us. Something that’s still playing.

MILES
Or maybe we are that something now.

COLTRANE (nods)
Maybe the Bardo is just the echo. And we’re the reverb.

(The instruments lift gently off the ground again, slowly rotating above their heads like planets in orbit. Soft, sacred tones fade in — like Tibetan singing bowls and church organs played underwater.)

MOVEMENT V: Change, Growth, and the Call to Keep Evolving

The light returns to The Fifth Bar in gentle waves — warm amber now, like the last golden light of an Earthly sunset. The five jazz legends sit in a relaxed, thoughtful circle. Their instruments rest nearby but untouched. There is a sense of quiet companionship. The air feels thinner, more honest.

BIRD (rubbing his temple, restless)
You ever think about how we changed? Not just our sound — but us. I started out copying cats note for note. Then one day… I just cracked open and never played the same again. But I don’t know if I grew. I burned. Fast.

LOUIS
You burned, alright. But sometimes growth is fire. Clears the weeds. Makes room for somethin’ new.

DUKE
Growth doesn’t always look dramatic, Bird. Sometimes it’s subtle. A shift in shade, not color. A chord you resolve a little differently… A pause where you once filled the space.

MILES (leaning back, quiet)
I never trusted comfort. As soon as folks liked what I was doin’, I changed it. Went left. Started whisperin’ instead of shoutin’. Plugged in when they wanted unplugged. Didn’t matter if they followed.

COLTRANE
I used to think mastery meant arrival. Now I see… it means departure. You don’t reach the top of the mountain to sit. You reach it to see the next one.

(A breeze passes through the bar. It ruffles their clothes, though there is no wind. Just change.)

LOUIS
It’s funny. We came from a time when folks didn’t expect us to change — just shuffle, smile, and play what they knew. But jazz always was about transformation. From struggle to swing. From dirt to gold.

BIRD
Sometimes I wonder if I was scared to grow. Scared I’d lose the thing that made me me.

MILES (pointed)
You were more than your speed, Bird. You were the map. The myth. We just used your lines to write new language.

DUKE
Gentlemen, what if growth was never for us? What if it was… for the music? So it could stretch. So it could evolve beyond any of us.

(They nod. Even Bird is still.)

COLTRANE
I used to chase perfection. But then I learned: Perfection is static. Growth? That’s movement. That’s life.

(He picks up his sax. Holds it. Doesn’t play — just feels its weight.)

MILES
You know what’s wild? We’re dead. And we’re still changin’.

(Silence. A light laugh from Louis.)

LOUIS
Music’s funny like that. Keeps you humble. Keeps you reachin’. Even in heaven.

(Soft music fades in — not as a performance, but like the future humming through the walls. The chords are unfamiliar. New. Possible.)

[Lights dim to a slow fade.]

MOVEMENT VI: Music as an Extension of Love

Lights return slowly to The Fifth Bar, but this time the colors are soft rose and gold — warm, human, earthly. The mood is tender. No tension. No conflict. Just presence. The five men are seated closely now, as if drawn together by an unseen gravity. Their instruments rest in their laps.

DUKE (softly)
You know what I miss most? Not the applause. Not the records. Not the critics writing poems about my voicings. I miss… the love. That moment when you play a single phrase… and someone in the back closes their eyes like you just touched their soul.

LOUIS
I played for love, man. Always did. Love for the people. Love for the music. Love for the woman waitin’ backstage with my favorite meal and a kiss. (He chuckles.) I played to make folks feel alive. Ain’t that love?

BIRD (quiet now, different)
I didn’t know how to say “I love you.” But I could play it. Every time I bent a note too far…Every time I screamed through the horn like it was my last breath — That was me saying I loved life. Even when it hurt.

(A long pause. Miles is still. Then…)

MILES (barely audible)
I loved through silence. Through space. You don’t always say it out loud. Sometimes you let the note hang…And if they feel it? That’s love.

COLTRANE
Love was my compass. I played to heal. To forgive. To elevate. Not just others — myself. Every solo was a love letter to the unknown. To God. To all of you.

(They sit in deep quiet. A full silence. It’s not empty — it’s full of everything they’ve shared.)

DUKE (softly, to the group)
Maybe music was just love…In disguise.

(The instruments glow. Slowly, they lift into their hands, as if drawn there by something larger than will.)

LOUIS
So what do we do now, fellas?

COLTRANE (smiling)
We give it back.

(They rise. Slowly. Together. They form a small circle. The stage glows brighter. Then—)

[For the first and only time in the play, we hear the jam. A rich, layered piece: modal, bluesy, syncopated, full of light and longing. Every player is distinct — but they move as one.]

The music rises. Carries the audience. Fills the room. There are no solos — only shared motion.

As the music peaks, the lights shift again — this time to pure white. The players begin to fade, not in sadness, but in completion.

COLTRANE (last to speak, as the music fades)
This is not the end. This is just the next phrase.

[BLACKOUT.]

[Projected text:]

“When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people… to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups.”

– John Coltrane

[CURTAIN.]