12 jazz drummers every drummer should study

The founders

1. Papa Jo Jones

With the Count Basie Orchestra, Jones shifted the timekeeping from the heavy four-on-the floor bass drum up to the hi-hat and ride, and swing got its float. Nearly everything on this list descends from that move. Start with: the late-1930s Count Basie recordings ("One O'Clock Jump" era). Listen to how light the time is.

2. Gene Krupa

The first superstar drummer. With Benny Goodman, Krupa made the drum solo a main event and drove the standardization of the modern kit. The tom-tom intro to "Sing, Sing, Sing" might be the most recognizable drum part of its century. Start with: Benny Goodman, The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert.

3. Buddy Rich

The technique benchmark, still. Self-taught, allegedly never practiced, and led his own big band for decades with a ferocity nobody has matched. You do not copy Buddy; you calibrate against him. Start with: the "West Side Story Medley" with his big band, any era.

The beboppers

4. Max Roach

Bebop's drummer. Roach moved the pulse to the ride and turned the rest of the kit into a melodic, conversational voice; he is the reason drum solos can follow song forms. Later, an uncompromising civil rights artist with We Insist!. Start with: Clifford Brown and Max Roach (1954).

5. Art Blakey

Hard bop's engine and its university. The Jazz Messengers graduated Wayne Shorter, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, and dozens more, all propelled by that press roll and a shuffle with the force of weather. Start with: Moanin' (1958), the most welcoming door into all of jazz drumming.

6. Philly Joe Jones

The drummer of Miles Davis's first great quintet and the gold standard for crisp, arranging-on-the-fly comping. His "Philly lick" is part of the vocabulary now. Rim-click swing has never been hipper. Start with: Miles Davis, Relaxin' or Milestones.

The revolutionaries

7. Elvin Jones

In the John Coltrane Quartet, Jones dissolved the beat into rolling triplet waves, with all four limbs in conversation. It feels like weather more than timekeeping, yet it swings impossibly hard. Start with: A Love Supreme (1964); then "Chasin' the Trane" when you are feeling brave.

8. Tony Williams

Joined Miles Davis at 17 and immediately redefined what the ride cymbal and hi-hat could do; metric modulations, burning up-tempos, and an aggression that later launched fusion via his band Lifetime. The most cited influence among modern drummers. Start with: Miles Davis, Four and More (live, 1964).

9. Roy Haynes

Seven decades of relevance, from Charlie Parker and Sarah Vaughan to Coltrane to Chick Corea and Pat Metheny, with a crackling, snappy sound (the man himself approved of "Snap Crackle" as a nickname). Proof that taste scales across every era. Start with: Chick Corea, Now He Sings, Now He Sobs (1968).

The modern lineage

10. Billy Higgins

One of the most recorded drummers in jazz history and its most generous smile. Equally at home freeing the time with Ornette Coleman and laying down the boogaloo on Lee Morgan's "The Sidewinder." The masterclass is in how good he made everyone else sound. Start with: Lee Morgan, The Sidewinder (1964).

11. Jack DeJohnette

The connective tissue between eras: Bitches Brew with Miles, three decades with Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio, and a touch that makes free playing feel inevitable. Listen for cymbal colors nobody else gets. Start with: Keith Jarrett Trio, Standards, Vol. 1 (1983).

12. Brian Blade

The contemporary standard for dynamics: whisper-quiet brushwork that erupts into full-kit crescendos inside a single phrase, with Wayne Shorter's quartet, his own Fellowship Band, and (telling you everything about range) Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. Start with: Wayne Shorter, Footprints Live! (2002).

How to use this list

One drummer at a time, one track at a time, the four-listen loop: once for pleasure, once for the ride cymbal only, once for the comping, once for the conversation with the soloists. Then steal one idea, a fill, a ride pattern, a dynamic move, and run it through your practice routine until it sounds like you. Twelve drummers, a track a week, and your playing comes out the other side with a vocabulary most drummers never acquire.