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 Smith (drummer) Charlie Smith (drummer) Charlie Smith (April 15, 1927, New York City – January 15, 1966, New Haven, Connecticut) was an American jazz drummer. Smith played locally in New York in the late 1940s before taking a position accompanying Ella Fitzgerald. He worked briefly with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1951 before being replaced by Louie Bellson, and also played with Joe Bushkin, Erroll Garner, Slim Gaillard, Benny Goodman, Hot Lips Page, Oscar Peterson, Artie Shaw, and Slam Stewart. He performed on television with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker in 1952, and later in the 1950s worked with Billy Taylor, Aaron