I am gonna need all the help I can get on this one.....
I need the best shit in these musical veins:(I know its subjective, but
the
more suggestions the merrier)...
Jazz-or Jazz influenced and
SOOOOO broad a category, I'll try to focus on drummers or just great
stuff:
for earlier swinging check out the early big bands like chick webb's (an
amazing drummer) and then there's duke ellington, fletcher henderson and count
basie for slower less beat driven stuff.
Later on you get faster more complicated stuff like charlie parker and
dizzy guilespie doing bebop. My personal favorite from this general era is
thelonious monk. He's an amazing piano playing who composed some the most
complex jazz ever made (check out "brilliant corners")
a little later comes miles davis, whose later fusion stuff kicks ass, and
john coltrane, whose drummer during the early years, Elvin Jones has been
compared to squarepusher (this is almost on topic) or the other way around
rather, for the similar amount of complexity in their work.
Later on you get free jazz by the likes of ornette coleman, coltrane
evolved into playing free, roswell rudd and bunch of other guys. I'm not
sure when peter brotzmann came on to the scene but his recent work is
completely insane.
Most people find free jazz unlistenable, and not very free or happy
sounding , but don pullen's work really has a joyful freedom to it even
though it's a little more constrained by tradition.
As for people working now check out susie ibarra. She's a great drummer but
I don't know if she ever learned how to keep time. She just puts up these wild
walls of sound with a just a drum kit. I don't know of any recordings of
just her solo playing and the album she put out on tzadik has hardly any of her
drumming but she has a live album out with some other drummer that i've heard
good things about. Speaking of tzadik, if you haven't checked out John
Zorn, look into naked city for everything influenced music and masada for jazz
combined with traditional jewish music.
Sorry I couldn't suggest many specific albums, my jazz record collection's
pretty sad but I've heard a lot.
Hope I was helpful.
-Peter