In a corner of New Orleans,
where the streets hum a tune older than time,
there’s a club called The Velvet Note,
where the walls seem to breathe
and the floorboards creak to their own rhythm.
That’s where Jasmine lives—
not in a house or a room,
but in the music.

She swings like jazz,
her hips a sway, her laugh a riff.
Her eyes catch the light like brass catching fire,
and her voice?
Low and smooth, like honey melting into warm tea.

Born to Lucille Dupree, a laundress with a backbone of iron,
and Marcus Dupree, a trumpet player with a wandering soul,
Jasmine grew up knowing two things:
how to dream
and how to fight for those dreams.
Her father left when she was six,
leaving behind his horn,
a stack of records,
and a ghost of himself that played
whenever the needle hit the vinyl.

By the time she was sixteen,
she could play those records in her mind,
memorized every Ella scat, every Monk misstep
that wasn’t a mistake but a choice.
She could mimic her father’s runs on the trumpet
and invent new ones he’d never think to try.
The neighbors called her a prodigy.
Her mama just called her stubborn.

One hot August night,
she walked into The Velvet Note for the first time,
carrying that old trumpet and a name too big for her small frame.
Steve King, the club’s owner,
sat in the corner nursing a whiskey neat.
He looked her over and said,
“Girl, you better have more than a pretty face.”

She didn’t flinch.
Didn’t blink.
She pulled that horn to her lips
and played a riff so dirty, so sweet,
the whole room gasped.
By the time she finished,
Steve was grinning.
“You got a spot on my stage,” he said,
“but don’t think it’s forever.
Jazz don’t...