Personally, I'm all for learning licks and lots of them - as well as grooves, styles, feels, etc. By themselves, licks are not good or bad. When used poorly or forced on the music, still a subjective judgement call, they may sound horribly inappropriate and represent a bad choice.
Then again, Vinnie probably knows a thousand licks. All that stuff isn't just made up in the moment. Any particular combination of ideas might be combined that way in the moment, but if you watch his solos and write out his stuff, you'll see certain patterns again and again. He practiced licks, reading, rudiments, styles, transcribed other drummers, etc., for thousands of hours as a teenager and after. Now they all come out so fluidly through his interpretation of the music that they seem like manna from heaven. Lots of it is really just manna from Steve Gadd, Tony, Chaffee, others and of course, hundreds of patterns of his own invention.
I transcribed Steve Gadd's Crazy Army solo (version 2005) from his recent clinic tour, and have memorized it. I'm teaching it to a lot of my students. Other than that, I'll probably never use it for anything, but I'm still glad I have it ingrained in my head.
I've transcribed Nevesis's (Buddy Rich) licks submitted here too, and wrote them into some short solo's I'll be giving to my students next week. Thanks for sharing them!
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