An older generation of writers and intellectuals–James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Alain Locke, and Charles S. Johnson–served as mentors. The most prolific writer of the Harlem Renaissance was Langston Hughes. Hughes cast off the influences of white poets and wrote with the rhythmic meter of blues and jazz. Zora Neale Hurston was noticed quickly with her moving novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. No aspect of the Harlem Renaissance shaped America and the entire world as much as jazz. Jazz flouted many musical conventions with its syncopated rhythms and improvised instrumental