I, myself, came to enjoy the players who didn't only just swing but who invented new rhythmic patterns, along with new melodic concepts. And those people are: Art Tatum, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Parker, who is the greatest genius of all to me because he changed the whole era around.
"What Is A Jazz Composer?". Charles Mingus' liner notes for "Let My Children Hear Music", album composed by Charles Mingus, January/February 1972.