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
Charlie Christian was inducted in 1990 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Christian's exposure was so great in the brief period he played with Goodman that he influenced not only guitarists but other musicians as well. The influence he had on "Dizzy" Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Don Byas can be heard on their early bop recordings "Blue 'n' Boogie" and "Salt Peanuts". Other musicians, such as the trumpeter Miles Davis, cited Christian as an early influence. Indeed, Christian's "new" sound influenced jazz as a whole. He reigned supreme in the jazz guitar polls up to two years after