Following the establishment of a regular quintet, Parker signed for Mercury Records with Jazz at the Philharmonic promoter Norman Granz as his producer. The partnership enabled Parker to work with musicians from other genres, such as Latin jazz percussionist and bandleader Machito, and to appear in concerts at Carnegie Hall as part of the Jazz at the Philharmonic series. Further, Granz was able to fulfil a longstanding desire of Parker's to perform with a string section. He was a keen student of classical music, and contemporaries reported he was most interested in the music and formal innovations of Igor Stravinsky and longed to engage in a project akin to what later became known as Third Stream, a new kind of music, incorporating both jazz and classical elements as opposed to merely incorporating a string section into performance of jazz standards. On November 30, 1949, Norman Granz arranged for Parker to record an album of ballads with a mixed group of jazz and chamber orchestra musicians. Six master takes from this session became the album Charlie Parker with Strings: "Just Friends", "Everything Happens to Me", "April in Paris", "Summertime", "I Didn't Know What Time It Was", and "If I Should Lose You".
Following the establishment of a regular quintet, Parker signed for Mercury Records with Jazz at the Philharmonic promoter Norman Granz as his producer. The partnership enabled Parker to work with musicians from other genres, such as Latin jazz percussionist and bandleader Machito, and to appear in concerts at Carnegie Hall as part of the Jazz at the Philharmonic series. Further, Granz was able to fulfil a longstanding desire of Parker's to perform with a string section. He was a keen student of classical music, and contemporaries reported he was most interested in the music and formal innovations of Igor Stravinsky and longed to engage in a project akin to what later became known as Third Stream, a new kind of music, incorporating both jazz and classical elements as opposed to merely incorporating a string section into performance of jazz standards. On November 30, 1949, Norman Granz arranged for Parker to record an album of ballads with a mixed group of jazz and chamber orchestra musicians. Six master takes from this session became the album Charlie Parker with Strings: "Just Friends", "Everything Happens to Me", "April in Paris", "Summertime", "I Didn't Know What Time It Was", and "If I Should Lose You".