I've always been a Neil Peart fan, and his passing is a great loss to rock.

I have several other favorites as well.  One being Terry Bozzio.  I always liked his antics playing with Frank Zappa.  FZ wrote the incredibly difficult to play "The Black Page" specifically for Bozzio.  Terry is a fantastic composer in his own right too, and I own several of his solo works.

His stuff with Missing Persons is pretty much just straight forward new wave / rock, but his jazz stuff is incredible.

Here is a great video of Terry playing one of his outrageously large kits with a favorite bass player of mine: