About Us

Gondwana formed in 1987 when pianist Drew Gordon, bassist Clinton Little and drummer Larry Hennessy began exploring new music together. From the beginning their focus was on creating original sounds, rhythms and textures as evidenced in their first joint composition: 77 , and in the eerie The Rocks Are Singing.

Seasoned sax man Max Ray added his distinct sound in 1989 on the tune Commie Cafe Suite and keeping true to form, hasn't looked back. His partner Rochelle Becker soon added her talents on both sax and vocals in creating a tight, full sound as heard on FOUT and El Choclo.

Life changes required bassist Clinton Little to leave the group but that didn't stop Gondwana from continuing to create new tunes and play new gigs. This period had the band performing with Shawn McConneloug's performance art series Blah, Blah, Blah for several years. Click here to view a video of a memorable performance of That Dang Yin Yang. They also began a long relationship of performing at the Alexis Bailly Vineyard in Hastings, Mn. that still continues.

Bassist Jerry Gorman's added energy helped round out the group in 2000 as can be heard on his tune Vegetarian Pizza.

Music lovers everywhere know that not all tunes are happy ones. When Gondwana co-founder, keyboardist and composer Drew Gordon passed away in 2006, the perfectly right person to step in to fill the void was Drew's brother, and fellow keyboardist, Rod Gordon.

Time marches on and things change. In 2019 Rochelle left and so we are a quartet again.