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
Frank R. Fisher One of the most famous jazz spots in the Fillmore was Jimbo's Bop City. Many famous jazz artists performed at Bop City, and at the clubs in the Fillmore district. Such artists as; Ella Fitzgerald, John Coltrane, Lionel Hampton, Dexter Gordon, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Stan Getz, Duke Ellington, Ben Webster, Billy Eckstine, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Dinah Washington, Art Tatum, Pony Poindexter, Charlie Parker, Kenny Dorham, Jimmy Heath, Woody Herman, John Handy, Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Zoot Sims. Mr. Fisher was a part of the Great Migration (African American)s, to the West Coast in the 40s. The