Jazz artists for late starter.

An endless list to choose from so I'll take up your point about drummers to start somewhere. In no particular order here are just a few of the icons, indispensible in every collection, whereby, looking at your list you're likely to have some of the "hard-hitters" playing in different groups already

Tony Williams (Tony Williams Lifetime, New Lifetime)
Jack deJohnette
Max Roach
Roy Haynes
Alphonse Mouzon
Bill Cobham

I promise, you're in for mind-blowing discoveries!

A few I believe I haven't seen so far: Carla Bley (even if you don't like it, you should have heard Escalator Over The Hill once), Charlie Haden, Gary Burton, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Jaco Pastorius, Marcus Miller, Red Garland Quintet, John Patitucci, Dave Holland Quintet, Lounge Lizards, oh, and another spectacular drummer: Cindy Blackman.

You may also want to include examples of European jazz from a multitude of origins and influences. Without any claim for being complete or even a particularly well studied selection, I'd just throw in some unavoidable ones:

Django Reinhardt (sort of "founding father" of European jazz), Esbjorn Svensson Trio (ESP), Niels Orsted Pedersen, Nils Petter Molvaer (pure adrenaline), Hein van de Geyn (though I'm sorry to say, avoid the critically acclaimed latest record with Lee Konitz, which is terribly uninspired), Wolfgang Haffner, Albert Mangelsdorf, United Jazz+Rock Ensemble, Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, Toots Thielemans, Bert Joris Quartet, Marc Moulin, Renaud Garcia-Fons Trio, Martial Solal, Eric Truffaz, Béla Szakcsi Lakatos, Bill Bruford's Earthworks, Jan Garbarek, Miroslav Vitous and Joe Zawinul (who have been living in the US for ages of course but always sound/ sounded, well, different somehow).

OK, next!

Watching this dead vs. alive skirmish escalate, I cannot but muse about those great composers, musicians, painters, poets, that lived and died alone in dire misery, paid their last absinthe with what was acknowledged to be the work of a genius only years or decades after they faded away. They were geniuses when they were alive, all the time, no one just noticed or understood.

Albeit far from the same magnitude, the assertion that demised jazz composers/musicians were in general better than the ones alive bears resemblance. If this thread would have been started a mere 10 months ago, would Joe Zawinul have been considered less of an innovator? If so, wouldn't it be because only after his death people have been rubbed with their noses in it (press articles, tributes, etc.) so it's really just become more commonly known?

One more thing about innovation. Before one may be recognized as an innovator, he or she has got to be recognized as belonging to the field that is subject to innovation. I read Bird's - to mention but one - music was initially not considered jazz by many, not even music just noise (a fate he shared with the likes of Beethoven and Wagner in their own time). Perhaps some of today's biggest calibers are just not on the radar yet.

To be sure: no offense meant to anyone, just in appreciation of brilliant artists past, present and future.

Gawdbless, in case you start having doubts, jazz is fun also! To prove it, here's another girl with drumsticks: Carola Grey & Noisy Mama.