To some extent subjective criteria determines whether or not a player is musical. Poorly informed listeners and people with fairly pedestrian musical sensibilities (most people) will spit out a very different list of players than a voracious listener who knows s##t from shinola. Dave Weckl and Steve Gadd have way too much Kenny G. in them to seem interesting when you can listen to:
Max Roach
Andrew Cyrille
John Hollenbeck
Lucas Niggli
Ches Smith
Pierre Favre
Han Bennink
Charles Hayward
Tom Rainey
Gerry Hemingway
Paul Motian
Dannie Richmond
Ed Blackwell
Pierre Tanguay... and most of the guys Xiekitchen mentioned.
Max Roach
Andrew Cyrille
John Hollenbeck
Lucas Niggli
Ches Smith
Pierre Favre
Han Bennink
Charles Hayward
Tom Rainey
Gerry Hemingway
Paul Motian
Dannie Richmond
Ed Blackwell
Pierre Tanguay... and most of the guys Xiekitchen mentioned.