I posted earlier that I would put the late Neil Peart on the Mount Rushmore for drummers, Alongside him I would put Ginger Baker, John Bonham and Carl Palmer. Who would be your Fab Four drummers.
Nah - Mason has never come across as anything overly amazing and when it came time to do A Momentary Lapse of Reason some-one had to work with him as he'd forgotten how to drum like he used to.
Bonham, Peart, Baker, Moon. Bonham - sound, feel, groove Peart - technicality, precision Baker - improvisation, invention Moon - dynamism, energy There are some truly monstrous players nowadays but these guys produced the vocabulary. Edit - shit, they're ALL gone now.
Absolutely. It’s interesting that most people who take the piss out of him aren’t drummers. Many drummers respect his abilities.
Holly: "Well, for instance, in this universe, it could be that Hitler won the Second World War. It could be something even more incredible, like perhaps Ringo was a really good drummer." I would go for the obvious choices of Peart, John Bonham and Moon. Jason Bonham is just about every bit as good as his dad, but he jumps bands so often, it's hard to follow him. It doesn't hurt that Black Country Communion has an overal Zep vibe, and Jason fits right in.
I agree with the men listed in the OP, but my "honorable mention" is Bill Ward from Black Sabbath. Just listen to every Sabbath album up to Sabotage and you can see that there's something special about 1970's era Bill Ward.
I don't think your analysis of the AMLOR era Nick Mason is complete. Nick Mason had a major self-confidence issue (as did Richard Wright to an extent) due to Roger Waters constantly telling them for the previous 10 years that they weren't crap and Roger Waters was the only true musician with any talent in the band. David Gilmour was really the only one of the band who was willing to reject Roger's BS.
Jason's a great drummer but yeah, he's failed to follow through with any consistency. Black Country Communion are his closest thing to a stable band and much as I've tried, I don't even like them much. Edit - read a great interview with John Paul Jones about playing Knebworth. They were soundchecking and JPJ elaborated on Bonhams feel and their telepathic understanding as a rhythm section, being able to improvise in the certainty that the other was in step with them whatever they did. Anyway, they were grooving away in the soundcheck when JPJ spotted Bonham walking across the field checking the sound levels. He turned around and there was young Jason pounding away at his dad's kit...
After his own band, I know Jason was in UFO and Foreigner for short stints. Some others too, but I'm not looking it up right now