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.
That "Night in Tunisia" track I mentioned above includes a Ron Carter bass solo and a Tony Williams drum solo with very prominent bass drums.
This reminds me of a jazz music joke: An anthropologist is given the privilege of being the first outsider to study an isolated tribe discovered deep in the jungle. When he enters the village, he hears a slow drum beat. He pays his respects to the village medicine man and asks about the drumming. All he is told is that every thing is fine as long as the drum keeps beating. The drum beats day an night and after a while the anthropologist scarcely notices it. On his last day in the village he goes to the medicine man to say farewell. Just as they are saying their final good byes the drumming stops. A look of horror comes over the medicine man's face. The anthropologist seeing the fear demands to know what this means. The medicine man cries out: "Oh no. BASS SOLO!"
Speaking of Tony Williams, in an interview in Modern Drummer Magazine the interviewer asked Tony if he had heard any drummers recently who impressed him. Tony responded (I paraphrase) "Have you heard the guy in The Ramones (he was speaking of the band’s second drummer, Marky)? Now THAT is great drumming!"
I’m pretty sure Tony was being sincere. If you listen to Marky’s drumming, it is very muscular, just what the music calls for. The playing of original Ramones drummer Tommy is much less so. Almost wimpy, in fact.
Some of the best recorded jazz is on a Japanese label--East Wind--and the recoding of drums is particularly good on an album for the Great Jazz Trio (Hank Jones, Ron Carter, Tony Williams): "Direct from LA." If you can find it, go for the original release (might be expensive) which has a very glossy cover. The drum solo on "Night in Tunisia" is amazingly realistic.
The following is not related to the op’s question, but as many readers have enjoyed the general topic of drumming, I thought the following may be of interest:
As others have commented, there ARE Jazz drummers who play their bass drum very much like Rock drummers. My initial answer was made in regard to the type of recordings he was speaking of, which is only a small part of the world of Jazz music.
In the 1950’s and 60’s there was Rock ’n’ Roll, and there was Jazz, and never the twain shall meet, as the old expression goes. That started changing around 1966/7 or so, when Jazz-influenced drummers began appearing in Rock bands. Mitch Mitchell in The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Ginger Baker in Cream, Carmine Appice in Vanilla Fudge, John Bonham in Led Zeppelin, and Bobby Colomby in Blood, Sweat, & Tears, most notably.
The father of the lead guitarist in my senior year high school band was a Jazz drummer, and he drove us all up to San Francisco to see and hear Cream and Hendrix at The Fillmore and Winterland. Let me tell ya, seeing him sitting on the floor of The Fillmore Indian-style, joints being passed down the row with him in the middle, was pretty damn funny. 😆 No, he didn’t partake.
At the same time the other Rock ’n’ Roll instruments were starting to be played by musicians with more technical chops than Rock musicians were typically known for. This included guitar (Jeff Beck a favorite), electric bass (John Entwistle, Jack Bruce, Jack Casady), and keyboards.
The increasing profits being enjoyed by the record companies---a result of the disposable income spending habits of the baby boomer generation, and the increasing cultural importance of music in their lives---and the money being made by Rock musicians, did not go unnoticed by Jazz record labels and by Jazz musicians themselves. And as the Rock audience started showing an interest in Jazz music, the Jazz players and bands thought they’d like in on the action.
While Rock bands started incorporating Classical music into theirs (resulting in Progressive music), Jazz started incorporating some elements of Rock into theirs (resulting in the Fusion genre). Both musics required the drummer to have the ability to play odd-time signatures (Ringo admitted his brain "didn’t work that way"), and a knowledge of the basic drumming rudiments (double stroke roll, paradiddle, flam, etc.) separated the men from the boys. Rock drummers had long been self-taught, playing only single-stroke style (even Keith Moon, believe it or not). Jazz players were trained musicians, knowing all the rudiments (which allowed them to play the all-important press roll) and reading music.
There are many sub-genres in all styles of music, including of course Jazz. One thing constant in all Jazz is the superior technical capabilities of it’s players. Some music requires that ability to play it well, some doesn’t. The technical abilities that advanced Jazz players possess is of no interest to the producers of other musics. Horses for courses, as they say. What Miles Davis looked for in a drummer is very different from what, say, Neil Young does.
One thing about technical players: their abilities are a basic tenet of their musical identity, and sense of self worth. When The Band was given carte blanche to choose the opening act for their July 10th, 1970 show at The Hollywood Bowl, they chose Miles Davis. Can you think of any other Rock ’n’ Roll band that would?! In the book The Story Of The Band: From Big Pink To The Last Waltz by Harvey and Kenneth Kubernik, record producer/manager Robert Marchese recounts running into Miles at the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Crescent Heights on the day of the show. "Tonight I’m going to be at The Hollywood Bowl to see you, brother", he said to Miles. Miles asked him "How good are these cats on the bill with me?" Robert replied "They’re the best white motherf***ers in the business right now." Miles glared, and said "I’m gonna smoke ’em."
Band drummer/singer Levon Helm---a very favorite of mine---and Miles’ drummer Jack DeJohnette became very good friends, and enjoyed a mutual admiration for one other. When Jack headlined the 2017 Playboy Jazz Festival, his set was highlighted by his version of The Band’s "Up On Cripple Creek". Now, as much as I love Levon, the drumming on that song was performed not by Levon, but by The Band’s pianist/singer Richard Manuel (most people aren’t aware of that fact). Richard in fact plays drums on about half the songs on The Band’s s/t ("brown") album. He’s also a favorite drummer of mine. Technique is not everything. 😉
Found this 2LP set in my collection, “The Big Beat” on Milestone. Features Blakey, Roach, Elvin Jones, and Philly Joe Jones , in separate sets recorded in the late 50s/early 60s. Listening to Elvin now. Each group is replete with some of the greatest ever, as well.
A good YouTube channel to watch is that of Ken Micallef. He's a Stereophile equipment reviewer, but has also written pieces for several of the drum magazines. He moved to NYC years ago to pursue a career as a drummer, but eventually decided he, as he put it in one video, "didn't have what it takes" (I paraphrase).
His videos are largely devoted to reviewing Jazz LP's, and discusses all the musicians in depth, including of course drummers. He REALLY knows his stuff.
@mijostyn: Webb’s bass drum may have been 28" in diameter, which was typical at the time. Or it may have been even 32", a common size of marching band bass drums. The drummers of the 1920’s put together their own sets, not buying them already assembled and marketed by the drum companies. The first bass drums were just converted from those used in parade marching bands, and it was Ludwig’s invention of the bass drum pedal in the late-1920’s that allowed a single drummer to play all the percussion instruments (bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, and assorted sound effects) in orchestras.
wolf_garcia is of course correct: The proclamation made by @russbutton is pure fantasy. Where do people get their mistaken ideas? In my story of recording above, the engineer used one mic (an Electrovoice RE20, pretty much THE standard for bass drums in studios, and my personal favorite) on the bass drum (double headed, with minimal damping), and just two overheads in stereo. No separate mics on the snare drum and the two toms (mounted and floor), a style of micing which makes the drummer responsible for producing a balance in the sound of the drum set. If you want the snare drum or toms louder, you hit them harder.😉 The drums were 1950’s WFL’s (the name Ludwig was using at the time), the lone cymbal a Turkish K. Zildjian (popular with Jazz drummers in the 40s, 50’s, and 60’s. In fact still are.).
Another monster Jazz drummer not yet mentioned is Elvin Jones.
When you mention Jimmy Cobb the description of “tasty” always comes up…. Try his incredible work on the Wes Montgomery album Boss Guitar….so flippin’ tasty
Plenty of love for Tony Williams and Billy Cobham among those who follow and live the jazz life… On a personal preference level, I believe Tool’s Danny Carey to be in the top 3 of any drummer list of the last 60 years…. If you haven’t heard Carey live, grab a tix to the Beat 2024 King Crimson tribute tour and enjoy drummer freaks….
+1 for Tony Williams and Billy Cobham. Also for Jimmie Cobb, who lives in my area (if he hasn’t passed) and can be heard on KOB. if we start listing excellent jazz and rock drummers, this will be a long thread.
@bdp24 Do you know what Chic Webb was using for a bass drum. It looked like a 50 , but then Chic was a very short man due to TB of the spine. All you saw was a head sitting atop the bass drum. Lindy Hop anyone? It seems there is no love for two of my many favorite drummers Tony Williams and Billy Cobham. Insane rock drummers include Tim "Herb" Alexander of Primus and Gunnar Olsen of Pucifer as well as Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree. The hardest hitting drummer of all time has to be Carmine Appice.
Feel free to join Us over on the Thiel Owners thread. Nice pairing 3.6 speakers with ML electronics. As above, Acoustic drums sound like drums. Enjoy the environment (studio) or venue on Jazz recordings.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m a jazz fan and especially a jazz drummer fan...current drummers like Tyshawn Sorey, Bill Stewart, Bryan Blade, Dave King, etc...not yer grandaddy’s drummers, and you can easily hear the kick in balance with everything else. Also note that not all jazz drummers adhere to the aforementioned cliche’s about "head on-head off kick drum size standards," and that’s a good thing. I get the thing about older recordings of course, but meh...I just turn the subs up a little.
Morello seems to lay back until the last millisecond and then let loose with a meticulous riff, on those Brubeck albums. I think i read somewhere that the time signature was 11/13 or something ridiculous like that, on Take Five. Although the name of the tune may suggest it was 5 beats per measure.
@lewm: Oh man Lew, I was playing with a guitarist who wanted include "Take Five" in his live shows. I can’t tell you how hard Morello’s part in that song is to play convincingly. He asked me if I could do it, and I replied "Sort of". Not even close!
By the way, my favorite drum "solo" are the little "breaks" Don Lamond plays in the recording of Bobby Darin’s "Beyond The Sea". SO cool!
What do you professional drummers think of Joe Morello? I was always amazed at his time keeping on the iconic Brubeck albums, Time Out and Take Five. I have one LP on which he is the lead musician. But he did not receive much notoriety for his skills, at least not as much as I would have expected.
In the 1990’s Earl Palmer’s jazz trio (piano, bass, drums) was performing in the bar at Chadney’s Restaurant in Burbank, located directly across the street from the NBC studio where the Tonight Show is taped. I lived two blocks away, and would occasionally walk over and sit on a bar stool, nursing a Scotch-on-the-rocks while listening to (and watching) them for a set or two.
Recordings are great, but there is nothing like watching a master musician playing live, up close if possible. I went to literally hundreds of live shows in the 1960’s, seeing everyone from The Beach Boys (my first concert, in the summer of 1964 at The San Jose Civic Auditorium in San Jose, with Brian playing bass and singing falsetto), The Beatles in ’65, and all the local San Jose groups and bands during 1965-67 (including Fritz, whose membership included Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. They were just another SJ group).
Then it was up to San Francisco to see and hear Hendrix and Cream, Procol Harum and The Kinks, The Nice (Keith Emerson’s pre-ELP group), The Dead and The Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks (Dan had a Jazz drummer in his band when I saw them), and too many others to remember.
In ’68 The Electric Flag (with Mike Bloomfield and Buddy Miles) and the doors appeared at The Santa Clara County Folk-Rock Festival (held outdoors. Ugh, I don’t care for that). The poor doors had to follow The Flag, and paled in comparison. Buddy Miles was amazing!
My Audiogon handle is a reference to my preference when it comes to bass drum diameter (and drum covering finish). Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa (and most all other big band drummers in the 1930’s and 40’s) played 26" bass drums early on, downsizing as time went on. Buddy settled on 24" in the 1950’s, and played that size the rest of his life.
On the first U.S.A. tour with Zeppelin, Bonham was playing a 24" kick, but soon moved on to 26 inches, for the rest of his life. Mitch Mitchell was also found of 24 inches, while Ginger Baker’s double-kick set up included one 20" and one 22".
For that matter, I attend live small group jazz gigs two or three times a month, usually in small clubs sitting within 15-20 feet of the drummer. Even in that setting one is not very aware of the bass drum. High hat and snare drum ( correct me if that’s not the correct name for the smaller drum usually mounted near to the high hat) predominate. So I wouldn’t fault the recording or your audio system if you can’t make out the bass drum on vinyl.
Hi all - jazz drummer here. What @bdp24wrote is spot on. In a jazz combo, I almost never keep time with the 18" bass drum; it serves as an accent piece while my hi-hat is the most metronomic instrument, followed closely by my ride. When I do emphasize the bass drum, it’s on a powerful punch accent but that’s about all.
Now, in my modern country project, the 22" bass drum is where it’s at!
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.
@dogearedaudioI 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.
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."
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.
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.
@bdp24Thank 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.
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 😉.
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").
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