But how is the sound fidelity on any of those? Do the toms even sound like anything more than a short thump? Because I don’t think recordings got good enough to really capture tom sounds well until the 70s.
Plenty of good quality recordings in that time.
The thing is is that it was expensive!
There is a huge sonic difference in the late 50's between jazz/classical recordings, and early rock 'n roll recordings. You're used to hearing those rock tunes, Chuck, Elvis, Fats, Eddie, which have far worse fidelity than from more 'prestigious' genres.
It wasn't until the late 60's/early 70's that record companies finally realized that rock was here to stay and invested more in recording those groups, so the fidelity improved drastically and became more in-line.
Rock songs, even back in the day, are pretty dense and noisy. They didn't close mic toms back then, so they weren't distinctive. That didn't start happening until the Sgt. Pepper's era, so the late 60s. But jazz combos were usually much less dense and more textural, so you can make out more of the instruments. And those drums sound good. Like others before me have said, Time Out has very damn good fidelity for the time, and doesn't have that 'dated recording tech' sound that pretty much all rock music until 1967 had.
