Lots of pontificating in this thread by a lot of you.
I'll simply say I was around when Martin Williams (& Nat Hentoff & Ralph J. Gleason) were in their primes, & they were all crucial to my now almost 50 year exploration of what we all love (jazz).
There were others (e.g. Robert Levin, Gitler, A.B. Spellman) but these 3 were key.