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

Vintage jazz recordings are not particularly noted for their bass reproduction.  Even the string bass is poorly recorded in a lot of them.  For one thing, those recordings are fairly heavily compressed, dynamically speaking.  They were meant to be played on consoles, not Theils. ;-)  In addition, the bass drum wasn't heavily featured in small-group settings like Hawkins or Webster dates.  A lot of jazz musicians didn't like drummers who dropped a lot of "bombs" and called attention to themselves.  The drummer was supposed to stay in the background.  If you listen to Buddy Rich or Gene Krupa in the 50's Verve albums, they're fairly restrained unless called upon to "let loose" on occasion.  

In the late 70's, as a student, I used to frequent the Buena Vista Lounge at Disneyworld.  The house drummer was quite loud and aggressive, and a lot of visiting jazz veterans didn't like him, calling him "Boom Boom."

Listen first live to jazz in a club or theatre or a concert than asked the same question. I think you never asked again.

@dogearedaudio I was listening to Ben Webster's Blue Light LP yesterday. Really wonderful album. Double bass in the front-middle of the soundstage and the cymbols/snare drums on the left side back of the stage. Webster played the horn on right side with the piano also placed on the right side, but behind Webster.

I can clearly hear the cymbols and snare drums, but no sound of the bass drums. There were tracks from two sessions on this album, one with Kenny Drew - piano, Niles Pederson -bass and Ales Riel - drums. Three more tacks were recorded with Arnved Meyer band, a Danish jazz band from 1959 to 1973.

At first I thought I was hearing the bass drums, but bit later realized that was more of my imagination than am actually hearing the thing (LOL). So that initiated my post and thanks for the reply. I have also noted missing bass drums in Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and many other albums. As you have correctly noted bass drums wasn't heavily featured in these small-group settings like Hawkins and Webster.

Krupa and Rich were bandleaders, featured performers, so naturally they did long solos with plenty of bass drum to emphasize the beat. So you may say the recordings are technically deficient but that wasn’t the question. The thumps are not particularly low frequency and can easily be heard.

@pwerahera

@bdp24 

Thank you for posting and answering this question.  Even listening to small-group, more recently-recorded jazz, I have wondered about the same issue.