NY TIMES
By BEN RATLIFF
Published: June 11, 2009

Drumming is jazz’s foundation, but it’s also where the music makes its deepest adjustments.

Ten years ago jazz suddenly started to sound different, and drumming had a lot to do with it. Not everything, but a lot. At the time Nasheet Waits, Rodney Green, John Hollenbeck, Eric Harland and Daniel Freedman were among those developing their own identities but also connecting everything through groove and pulse: making traditional jazz rhythm fit with free improvisation, Afro-Cuban music, funk, Middle Eastern music, classical percussion.

Those five, whom I wrote about in 1999, have helped widen the language of jazz. Here are five who have come to light more recently. They’re all finding new ways to look at the drum set, and at jazz itself. Despite the demise of the JVC Jazz Festival, which would ordinarily run this month in New York, this city is a jazz festival year-round. They’re part of what makes it so.  Full Article…