Renell Gonsalves

Drummer
Born on July 13,1948
Son of longtime Ellington sax player Paul Gonsalves. He was raised in Chicago and began playing drums in 1963. After spending time at Tennessee State University and playing in the marching band, he moved to New York and mostly listened to all of his idols including Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Anthony Williams, [a401563], Roy Haynes, Art Blakey. He moved back to Detroit in 1970 and worked with many artists in the Jazz and R&B field.

From 1974 to 1979, he worked with Brainstorm and recorded 3 albums. From 1980 to 1987 he worked with [a581666]. From 1987 to 1990, he worked with [a893617]'s band. 1991 found him working with [a944530]'s band. He also spent time working in Windsor, Ontario. working with many Canadian musicians playing R&B, Rock & Jazz including the Sheiks of R&B, The Buck Nasty Band and The Shades of Blue. He also played with Eddie Nuccilli's big band at the Montreux/Detroit Jazz festival in 1995. That same year, he began working with Etta James guitarist Bobby Murray. Since then, he has mostly freelanced with other Blues artists such as Johnnie Bassett, Keith Owens, Luther Keith among others.

He continues to freelance playing a wide variety of music and learning more and more about music playing with such players as Keith Vreeland and John Dana. He has had many influences playing with the likes of the Dr. Teddy Harris, Rod Hicks, Robert Lowe and countless others. His mother, Harriet Browne, was a dancer and dance teacher in New York City. Those she worked with included Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, Sandman Sims.