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
John Coltrane discography the session as September 27, 1949 in New York City, but Lewis Porter's "John Coltrane: His Life and Music" states that he was on tour with the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band during that time. Most sources confirm that he recorded with Billy Valentine on November 7 in Los Angeles for Mercury Records. In subsequent years, Coltrane sat in on recording sessions with Gillespie, Johnny Hodges, Earl Bostic, and Gay Crosse. In September 1955, Coltrane joined the Miles Davis Quintet and appeared on several Miles Davis-led recordings, including "'Round About Midnight" and "Milestones". He briefly joined Thelonious Monk in May 1957,