Following Andrew Hare’s Why learn jazz? post:
“[I]t seems to me that playing jazz gives a drummer more sensitivity for the drumset and much more of a rounded concept. It’s hard to explain that without someone feeling like I’m trying to say that I want them to play jazz. I’m not. I’m saying, “What I want you to do is play the drums better.” It just so happens that, if you learned a lot about jazz, practiced for two or three years and really tried to be good at it, you would become a better drummer.
– Tony Williams
Word.