@curiousjim
Can you imagine a band with John McLaughlin and Larry Young? It was called Lifetime and the drummer was Tony Williams, who led the band... no issues of keeping up.
Can you imagine a band with John McLaughlin and Jaco? It was called Trio of Doom and the drummer was, yes, Tony Williams...again no issues with keeping up!
Can you imagine a band with Pharoah Sanders and Sonny Sharrock?! The drummer was none other than Elvin Jones... you know he didn't have any problems keeping up!
The same could be said of The Mahavishnu Orchestra... Billy Cobham had things well under control.
One of the highlights for me of seeing the Dave Holland Quintet was when everyone was soloing at once and I couldn't tell where the "one" was. I was always amazed by Billy Kilson -- no matter how rhythmically complex things got, he remained the calm at the center of the storm. Of course, Elvin was renowned for the same capacity.