No, music is not a competition (unless you're Van Cliburn, a grammy nominee, sweating the Tchaikovsky, looking at a level 400 Jury at Julliard ......) but this was just a good natured way to acknowledge perceived greatness. Sinatra was, for me the most well accomplished interpreter of the music he chose to sing. Unfettered, pure vocal ability with the psychic peephole that showed us how much he meant every word.
Ellington offers a thousand reasons to marvel, but one thing really grabs me about his arrangements: his mastery and composistional use of diminished structures. He and Stravinsky are two rare cases where these harmonies are not just a tangential device or V chord substitution to develop tension in tired bebop changes. It borders on Mihaud type bi-tonalism, but it's much more melodic and subtle.
I doubt very seriously that either one of these guys needed any second thought, special gear, producers or encouragement to be great musicians. That's rare company.