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.

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."