Nice idea! People that were influential either early on or over the years, in some kind of chronological order: Bill Ward, Neil Peart, Ringo Starr (whether I realized it or not), Mitch Mitchell, Ian Paice, Michael Shrieve, Bill Bruford, Jack DeJohnette, Tony Williams, Jaki Liebezeit, Christian Vander, Apt. Q-258, John Marshall (later Soft Machine), Peter Erskine, Lenny White, Billy Cobham, Zigaboo Modeliste, Bill Kreutzmann, Pierre Moerlen.
If I could jam with anybody, it would be Jimi Hendrix & Mitch Mitchell! Or how about Jerry Garcia and Jack DeJohnette?!!
And of course, the drummer who has influenced me the most is my friend Greg DeGuglielmo, and he is someone I have been fortunate to actually play with a lot. He's on all my recordings, he can rock & he can improvise and is always very musical - a lot of times I take just his drum track and create a whole new song out of it!