Maynard Ferguson, Chuck Mangione and Bill Watrous were very popular with my peers, as well. Usually feelings that well up inside such as joy, sorrow, irony and of course, the search for beauty. A composer is constantly influenced by new things, new ideas, musical and otherwise. The feeling you get when composing a new piece is a feeling of gratification and discovery, which for me, is hard to describe. Sometimes you may think of someone as you compose, but it is an idea, or impression, a feeling that you have about a person, or a person's ideas that is inspiring you to create something, in a composer's case, through music.
Creativity comes from deep inside, and is truly difficult to explain.
It's an intangible process. I would say there are many talented composers in my peer group today, and there are many more to come. Obviously, there must be some fulfilling, artistic reason that so many of our music's Master improvisers, and composers have kept coming back to re-examine the Standards Repetoire throughout their careers. I love to compose, and will likely always write original music. It's all about what you do with the song.