Chester Thompson and Steve Gadd are my two (old timer) favorites. CT with FZappa, Santana and embarrassed Phil Collins on stage when he toured with Genesis. Steve Gadd is just incredible in the studio!
Two GOATS for sure. Had the privilege of attending a CT drum seminar many years ago, hell of a nice guy.
Steely Dan's Aja is one of my favorite songs and album of all time. Steve walks in and nails one of the all time greatest drum tracks in two takes, unheard of with SD, drops mic and leaves. Its my number one demo track when listening to a system.
This from Wikipedia:
Drum solo[edit]
Gadd, whose part had designated sections where he was to
improvise, took two
takes to record his part, including the
solos (the first
drum solos ever on a Steely Dan record
[5]), not one as is sometimes claimed;
[23] they were edited together in the final mix. "[His] part was not written. We discussed the tune a little bit and by virtue of his musicianship he just knew what to do," said Becker. "I remember, through the part that became the
saxophone solo, telling him just to play like hell through there. He said okay."
[24]
"The session went real smooth," Gadd told jazz critic
Ben Sidran in 1995. "Everyone had their head into it like probably it was going to take a long time to get it, if we
ever would get it. And, that day, it just seemed to fall into place."
[6] Ten years later he elaborated further that he had heard of Becker and Fagen's difficulties and "[a] lot of the musicians weren't very optimistic that they were ever going to get these things done."
[23]
According to Sweet, Gadd's playing was so visually appealing that some of the other players became distracted and had to rerecord portions of their parts later.
[12] Becker and Fagen were so satisfied with the drummer's work that they asked him back to play on some tracks from
Gaucho, their next album.
[19]