Groove o' the day: Spider Webb - It Feels So Good

This is by a drummer I need to know more about, because he's great: Kenneth “Spider Webb” Rice. I guess I need to do some homework, dig up some records, and listen Jake Feinberg's interview with him.

This is the opening groove on the title track from Grover Washington's Feels So Good album, and the drumming performance is a textbook on how to play a funk arrangement. There's not really any fancy drummer stuff here, but if you play this well, nobody will care (nobody cares anyway, actually, but still). Rice shares drumming credits with Steve Gadd on this record.

To make this groove you really have to know where the quarter note pulse is, and place the 2 and 3— the little notes after the displaced backbeat on the 'a' of 1, and after the open hihat. Don't accent them, just think about them and place them. As you listen to the track you'll hear some of the 16th notes swing— on that ending bass drum note, and on some of the fills. The snare drum on the 'a' of 1 is not swung, however.