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

Ralph Collier was a very fine and very tasteful drummer you don’t hear much about today. He played with Goodman, Kenton and Bob Crosby, among others. He could really swing a band and used the kick drum sparingly but to excellent effect.  There are some good examples of his playing on YouTube.

Bernard Purdie ? One of my friends who played drums with rock bands as a side line idolized him.

One drummer whom all the other musician’s in the Jazz and Big bands of the 1930’s and 40’s really liked playing with was Dave Tough. While his technical chops were not as well developed as some of the other drummers, and he therefore couldn’t solo as well as most, he reported could "swing a band" harder than just about all his competition. In other words, the Ringo Starr of his time. 😉

A drummer who plays in a fashion so as to make the band as a whole sound as good as it can, and provides superb musical accompanimment and support to the other musicians (and the singer) is highly revered by non-drummer musicians, and by singers. For instance, many consider the late Jim Gordon the best Rock ’n’ Roll drummer of them all. Better than Bonham, Baker, Moon, Mitchell, etc? Yes. A professional studio musician while not yet out of high school, he was an extremely musical drummer. And his drums and cymbals were as good sounding as I’ve ever heard. Frank Zappa nicknamed him "Skippy". 😂

True story: I did a session on a song being recorded for inclusion in a low budget horror movie. A producer/engineer I knew called me with the date, and after the first take he asked me to play more "fills", suggesting where in the song to place them. I responded that if I did as he requested the drums would be "playing over" the vocal melody line. He responded "Oh, I don’t care about that" (?!). On the second take I played a little more "aggressively", but not busy enough to satisfy the producer. He then asked me to play more like Keith Moon. The song was in the 1960’s Pop style, not Rock, and the singer asked "Is that appropriate for the song?" (a good question). The producer responded "Oh yeah, The Who were in the 60’s." I held my ground (I have my reputation to protect, regardless of the opinion of this particular producer).

I got a call from the guy a coupla weeks later, telling me that after I left the studio he went in and laid down his own drum track (we was a multi-instrumentalist), and submitted the completed track (with his drumming) for approval by the movie’s musical director. The track was rejected, so he resubmitted the song with my drumming, and it was approved.

Musicality. In my book, that’s what it’s all about.

Pop and rock music is made from electronic instruments.  All your drum sounds are created by the recording and mastering engineers and have NOTHING to do with how they sound in real life.  Your listening experience has always been artificial.

Jazz music is played live with acoustic instruments.  Visit New Orleans and listen to the live street bands.  Go to live jazz performances with acoustic instruments.  THAT is what jazz music sounds like.

It's like eating Eggo waffles warmed up in a microwave oven, versus making them from scratch.  Time to graduate from a diet of Pop tarts.

Baloney. Well recorded acoustic drums sound like drums. Period. I've spent decades as a pro musician recording, live concert mixing, and putting great microphones here and there and sometimes not putting them anywhere at all (Kenny Wolleson asked me not to mic his drums with Julian Lage and luckily the room supported it...sort of...but hey...I'm in the service of the musicians) and it generally sounds great. If it doesn't I blame somebody else or the venue.