The protagonist jazzman, Dale Turner, is based on a composite of real-life jazz legends Lester Young (tenor sax) and Bud Powell (piano).
[3][4] Gordon was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won a Grammy for the film's soundtrack entitled The Other Side of Round Midnight in the category for Best Instrumental Jazz Performance, Soloist.
After talking with a fellow musician who is currently disabled by illness, Dale decides to try to improve his life by traveling to Paris and making a living playing at Le Blue Note [fr] jazz club until his luck gets better.
Turner arrives in Paris and is befriended by Francis, a struggling French graphic designer specializing in film posters and who lives with his daughter, his marriage having broken up.
After Francis eventually leaves and returns to Paris and his daughter, he receives a telegram from Dale's music manager saying that the musician has died in a local hospital.
The supporting cast is likewise composed of jazz musicians (mainly from the generation which followed Gordon and Powell) such as Herbie Hancock, Bobby Hutcherson, John McLaughlin, and Wayne Shorter, among others who perform the music throughout the film.
The website's consensus reads: "Brought brilliantly to life by Dexter Gordon's outstanding performance, Round Midnight is the rare jazz-inflected drama that matches the power of the music.