That's funny, I would characterize the importance of hits in pretty much the opposite way coming from the perspective of a drummer. The only time you really see hits is in jazz or big band stuff-- in fact a lot of times jazz (drum) charts are just those weird horizontal bars to denote the jazz ride pattern with hits on top (not even any particular orchestration). But with most other genres it's more important to just keep the groove going. Also that track is fantastic.
Thanks for the kind words galen. Hmm, very interesting. Yeah as a bassist, lead sheets rarely denote specific hits. Since graduating I've played with a few groups casually and hits are what make a song unique.
That said, groove is always of the utmost importance, regardless of genre.
Myself and the master himself about two years ago: