Why I don't hear bass drums on Jazz LPs?


I don't hear the bass drums during playback of a number of jazz LPs (Webster, Hawkins, Ellington, etc). I have Thiel 3.6 speakers powdered by Mark Levinson 23.5 amp. I can isolate the sound of bass drums on rock/pop LPs but not on jazz LPs unless drummer play solo in the middle parts.

 

I read somewhere this has to do with size of the bass drums used in 40s, 50s and another explanation was the way drummer play bass drums. I can clearly isolate the double bass, snare drums, and cymbals on jazz LPs, but hardly the bass drum. Let me know your experience with this issue. 

pwerahera

Can you PLEASE post pictures of the POWDERED Thiel speakers?

What powder did you use?

 

Here’s why:

In Jazz, drummers tune their bass drum to a higher pitch than in Rock/Pop music, and leave it undamped, so it rings. Rock drummers often removed the front bass drum head (or cut a hole in it) so as to make the attack of the bass drum pedal beater (typically made of hard felt) hitting the batter head more audible. Jazz drummers like their bass drum to sound like their toms, but lower in pitch

Jazz drummers play the bass drum in a manner known as "feathering". That means instead of pounding the bass drum pedal so that the beater slams into the bass drum head, then leaving it against the head (known as "burying the beater"), Jazz drummers "tap" the beater against the head and then let it rebound.

In Jazz the bass drum is played so as to be part of a musical instrument (the complete drumset), not as a separate big, loud "thud". A classic example of a drummer who "buried the beater" was John Bonham. If you listen with a "certain musical sensibility", burying the beater tends to chop the music into separate sections, rather than letting the music flow like a stream, uninterrupted. The bass drum"thud" tends to make the music feel as if it is constantly stopping and starting again with every bass drum note played (in 4/4 time on the "1" and "3"---the "downbeat". The snare drum plays the "2" and "4"---the "backbeat").