Although note that the knowledgeable will have different ideas about who's important. You often hear variations of the phrase "an X's X" (i.e. a poet's poet, a director's director), and the same is true for trumpeters. While Miles was a solid player, he couldn't pull amazing melodies out of thin air at breakneck speeds like Clifford Brown[1], didn't have the virtuoso skill of any number of other folks[2], and had kind of a crap tone to boot[3].
3. Neither warm like Brownie nor powerful, like, say, vintage Louis Prima: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46byB2YGePA (solo starts at 4:25 and continues after the break). At least I think that was Louis Prima. It's been a while since I've seen the liner notes for that one.
