Toots Thielemans I hear him." During an interview in 1988, he recalled, "I guess I was born at the right time to live and adapt and be touched by the evolution in the jazz language." In 1949 he joined a jam session in Paris with Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Max Roach and others. He first heard the faster bebop style of jazz from records by Parker and Dizzy Gillespie after they had reached Belgium after the war. They became his musical "prophets." As his small collection of jazz records grew, the music of Benny Goodman and Lester Young began to
The Genius of Charlie Parker Vol. 2" [Savoy MG 12009] and "The Charlie Parker Story" [Savoy MG 12079]) completing the reissue of the previously released master takes, and the original issue of most of the unreleased takes from these seven sessions. Parker's entire Savoy ouvre was finally issued on "Charlie Parker: The Complete Savoy Studio Sessions" in 1978. The master take of "Koko", included here, is controversial in that it is unclear who, precisely, plays trumpet and\or piano on the track. The liner notes credit Miles Davis with trumpet for the session, but also credit Dizzy Gillespie with both trumpet and piano. Several sources claim