One of the reasons that pop drums started to get centered is that they contain a large percentage of the total volume of the track. On vinyl recordings, very nasty thing started happening to the needle if most of the power was on one side of the groove only!

Jazz drums didn't originally (especially in small combo and swing bands) have anywhere near this prominence in the mix, so putting them to the side (where they were often placed physically in big bands) wasn't an issue so much. But as soon as even jazz drummers started to be a more prominent part of the mix (fusion and onwards), front and center became the standard there, too.

Nowadays, even though digital makes this entirely moot, we still cling to the convention of drums being centered. Mind you, you CAN place the drums off center, but only if you place something equally as powerful on the other side, to balance the soundfield. But it's very rare.