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

@bdp24 

Wow. Thanks. That is really interesting.

I joined a Jump Blues/Swing band in 1973, and had to learn to play in the style heard on the 1940’s-50’s recordings of that music. Those drummers played "4 on the floor", a term meaning playing the bass drum with 4 quarter notes per bar (on the "1", "2", "3", and "4"). Doing so gives the music a feel of forward momentum. It works whether you’re playing "straight" feel or "swing" (known as shuffle in Blues). Charlie Watts was fond of 4 on the floor.

I studied the playing of the master---Earl Palmer, who is heard on the 1950’s recordings of the likes of Little Richard. John Bonham copped Earl’s intro to Richard’s "Keep A-Knockin’" for his intro to Zeppelin’s song "Rock And Roll". And I mean a direct imitation, though with a sluggishness (playing just slightly behind the "pocket" of the song) not heard in Earl’s great "leading the charge" feel.

In the late-90’s I played a gig backing Little Richard’s 1950’s label mates at Specialty Records, the duo of Don & Dewey (Don is Sugarcane Harris, better known to you younger guys for his violin playing in Frank Zappa’s band). I had no rehearsal with the guys, just got to the club (The Continental in Los Angeles), played an opening set with the instrumental trio I was working with at the time (we also recorded the album Moontan with a guitarist/songwriter/singer you are probably not aware of---Evan Johns, R.I.P.. Drank himself to death, making it to only 61 years of age), and got a beer while Don, Dewey, and their bassist (a great player with a beautiful old sunburst Fender P-Bass and Ampeg SVT amp) mounted the stage and got plugged in and ready to go (it took Don quite a while. He was higher than a kite 😁). So the bassist comes over to me at the beginning of each song, just telling me the feel of the song (straight or shuffle) and then counting it off: 1, 2, 3, here we go 4! Believe it or not the set went well, and afterwards Dewey came over to me and said "I like your style." This from a guy who had Earl Palmer on his recordings! Well thank you, sir. My pa (a flaming racist) would not have been happy seeing me on stage with three nig---oh, never mind.

When I was out in Austin in 2008 I met with a bandleader (Cornell Hurd) whose first question to me was "Do you play half notes or quarter notes on your bass drum." I already knew he had started out as a garage band drummer around the same time as I (early-’65), and that question told me he knew what he wanted in a drummer. I ended up not moving to Austin, but I knew a great Telecaster player who did. We had moved from San Jose to L.A. together in June of 1979, right after The Knack broke big. Paul Skelton was his name (another dead one, this guy from smoking cigarettes). You can hear him on a buncha Austin-artists albums, including the debut by the Hillbilly/Rockabilly singer/songwriter Wayne "The Train" Hancock. By the way, Jr. Brown recorded one of Cornell’s songs, making him a little dough.

All right, that’s enough outta me. Perhaps more than enough 😉.

@bdp24 Thank you very much for your very informative response. I thought may be the mics did not capture the bass drums. Now I know it has to do with the way they played the bass drum. It is always good to hear from those who know the subject. Again thank you for sharing your expertise.

A small further observation - in rock and pop music, the pulse of the music is set by the combination of bass drum, snare and hi hat, whereas in jazz the ride cymbal is the dominant pulse setter.

@OP, you will hear the bass drum in jazz recordings, just don't expect it to be there all the time or on two and four.

BTW Bruce Gary was the drummer in the Knack - an absolutely outstanding and underrated drummer. Check out Africa (not the Toto Jeff Porcaro song) on the Round Trip album.

@bdp24 

Amazing knowledge of the drum, thank you for sharing. And your musical experience is fascinating. Here I was loving music as a teen and then moved on to a business professional life which in the end allowed me to get back into my passion, music. But it seems as you have lived in music your entire life.  And you survived it! For what it's worth, some of my favorite drummers are Christian Vander of Magma, Ginger Baker and more recently Gavin Harrison.