People equate big drums with the swing era or rock. Small drums are considered "jazz sizes" because all the greats used small drums in the be-bop combos and they cranked the heads way up because that actually projected across the room better than low and flappy. Lots of those guys played small clubs in the city and carried their gear around in cabs and on the subway and buses. Small drums were better for that. And you can get small drums to sound low and huge BTW..... ;)

I find this especially noteworthy. Thanks for your input LD, some strong points. I'm in no way knocking the 12/14/20 setup by any means, I love mine in lots of situations, I just find I need a fuller sound sometimes. I guess its more of a marketing thing rather than a "this is the ideal setup" kind of thing?

there are so many variables here. calf heads, club size, dynamics, portability, style, group size, drummer touch, and on and on and on. you can't generalize. the companies do that for marketing purposes. if you, like joe morello, prefer what is considered the classic rock setup of 22 13 16, then play it. if you prefer the be-bop 18 12 14, then go that route. heck, check out tony's yellow monster run and try calling that a jazz setup. do the research and you will understand the reasoning behind certain configs nomenclature. it's only after educating yourself in jazz history and rock history and drum manufacture history that all this becomes very clear.

Swing and big bands; Big drums.

Be bop and small combo jazz; small drums.

We need to understand that when bop evolved, there were no amplified instruments. Acoustic piano, acoustic bass and sometimes, but not as a rule, horns. Brushes were used a lot. Drummers were not worried about being heard, they were worried about being too loud. Even the swing bands were much more controlled than in todays music. There were very few if any small drums when swing was king.

Jazz is one of those terms which covers a lot of styles and eras of music.

Amplification changed everything.

Drum sizes continue to evolve. 10, 12, 16 seems to be replacing 12,13,16 for 3-tom configurations. I'm not sure I like that. And bass drums continue to get deeper. Where will it all end? Violin

On topic, my jazz set has a 16x12 bass drum on a lifter. I get a nice sound from it that works in a variety of musical situations.

No matter what size band I play in I use a 26" kick. I don't know where the idea that large drums are louder than small drums came from... my 26" is lower not louder.

I cannot stand the current trend of using small "bass" drums. I always wonder why they are called "bass" drums when they put out low mids like a trombone.

With all the stuff I put on my kick, my set actually takes up less space on stage than the typical 16" bass drum kit with Tama boom stand for the ride cymbal and all the other double braced stuff.

I understand guys in Manhattan using small kicks, but for lots of people I think there's been a silly "follow the leader" fad with the small kicks and lots of people end up with more stand cases and crap in their car than the big kits had.

Try dig Buddy up from the grave and get him to play a 16" bass drum. There's a message there, because he was the most special drummer of all time and also the cleanest technique drummer of all time.

the responses in this thread show that it obviously has mostly to do with perosnal preference.

for me, i like to be heavy on the cymbals when i'm jazzin. so i'm pretty light on the kick and snare and put more emphasis on the hihats and ride.

so a smaller kit works fine for that.

I've been using a small kit with an 18" kick again recently.....and I've actually got less hardware than before now! So....its a less crap to carry around thing for me. The 18" works fine for what I use it for and it does sound as huge as a 26" does...its all in the tuning and technique. ANd they fit way better in my econobox! Cool Dude

In NYC, a lot of places that hire jazz groups have a tiny, itty bitty little space to play. An 18" BD would be too big in some of these places. So a lot of NY jazz drummers have tiny little kits. I used to play with a guy that used one cymbal, a 10x14 marching snare as a bass drum, and a little 13" piccolo snare. That was it, and he always sounded amazing!

Also, most jazz groups tend to play in the mainstream style that seems to have been solidified in the late 50's and early 60's, ie Real Book tunes like All the Things You Are, Bye Bye Blackbird, Autumn Leaves, played straight ahead, mostly inside the changes, and the occasional mid-60's post bop tune by Wayne Shorter or Joe Henderson, or Jobim tune. This is just the formula that has developed for the majority of jazz groups, and with that formula goes the small drum set. I think MOST of the jazz drummers (obviously not all, ie Morello) that were playing during those years, while the formula was being established, were playing 20-12-14 or 18-12-14. Quiet, subtle, club and restaurant music. It's somewhat rare these days that a jazz drummer will play (or be asked to play) in the style of Buddy Rich or Gene Krupa, outside of college or community big bands.

Also, on a lot of jazz gigs, the players often haven't ever played together before, or even met. They are depending on each other to know the same set of tunes, and it's "always an audition" in that each player wants to do well to get more calls for gigs. With this comes a need for credibility, and so you will see most jazz musicians wanting to fit with the established formula - ie a small drum set, dark, smoky sounding cymbals, upright acoustic bass, Selmer VI saxophone, etc, etc. I'd venture to say that most jazz drummers, on most gigs, are not wanting to prove that "great jazz can be played on a huge set of vistalites" even though that happens to be true...it doesn't fit with the status quo.

Thanks,

Bill