eJazzNews Archive

Ethnic Nepali Is “India’s Jazz King”

Originally published on eJazzNews · · By Surendra Phuyal · Book Reviews

In December 2005, eJazzNews ran Surendra Phuyal’s profile of Louis Banks, the Mumbai keyboardist and composer born Dambar Bahadur Budaprithi, under the headline “Ethnic Nepali is ‘India’s Jazz King.'” Banks, then 64, now usually spells his first name Louiz and is widely known as the godfather of Indian jazz.

What the 2005 profile said

Phuyal traced the family to Nepal. The profile said Banks’s grandfather, Bakhat Bahadur Budapirti, composed the music of Shreeman Gambhira, which served as Nepal’s national anthem from 1962 to 2006 (some later accounts make him a great-grandfather), and that his father, the musician Pushkar Bahadur, moved from Kathmandu to Calcutta in the 1930s and never went back.

Interviewed at his home studio in Juhu, Banks said he was busier than ever. The profile counted more than 8,000 jingles and thousands of songs to his name, many of them for Hindi films, and noted that he had recently become a brand ambassador for Yamaha keyboards. He talked about wanting to work with Himalayan melodies and instruments such as the madal. The piece also introduced his son Gino Banks, then 22 and already in demand as a drummer, and recalled their 2002 visit to the Jazzmandu festival in Kathmandu.

From Darjeeling to Bombay

Banks was born in Calcutta, now Kolkata, in 1941, and grew up in Darjeeling, where his father, a trumpeter known professionally as George Banks, led a band at the local gymkhana club. His own first name was chosen in honor of Louis Armstrong. In the 1960s he spent three years leading the house band at the Soaltee Hotel in Kathmandu, then returned to India to play in Calcutta hotels and clubs. At the Blue Fox restaurant he led the Louiz Banks Brotherhood with singer Pam Craine and saxophonist Braz Gonsalves, the group he has called the best band he ever had.

The film composer R.D. Burman heard him at the Blue Fox and hired him to play piano on the 1977 film Mukti. In 1979 Banks moved to Bombay with his electric piano, joined Burman’s team and played nightly at the Searock Hotel; when Burman’s popularity faded, he turned to writing advertising jingles.

Indo-jazz and later work

Banks played the Jazz Yatra festivals in Bombay and toured Europe with Sangam, a band that combined jazz with Carnatic music. In the late 1980s he formed the fusion group Silk with bassist Karl Peters, drummer Sivamani and singer Shankar Mahadevan. He was also one of the arrangers of Mile Sur Mera Tumhara, the 1988 Doordarshan film on national integration. For the wider story of the style, see our guide to jazz fusion.

The biggest international recognition came after the eJazzNews profile. At the 2009 Grammy Awards, two albums he played on were nominated for Best Contemporary Jazz Album: Miles From India, a tribute to Miles Davis on which he worked as co-producer, arranger and pianist, and John McLaughlin’s Floating Point, on which he was the featured keyboardist. In Mumbai he has curated International Jazz Day concerts and formed the band Guitar Synergy with his son Gino.

Where to start listening

  • Various artists, Miles From India (2008): a celebration of the music of Miles Davis, with Banks as co-producer, arranger and pianist.
  • John McLaughlin, Floating Point: the McLaughlin album on which Banks is the featured keyboardist.

Sources

This page is based on an article from the original eJazzNews archive (2001 to 2018), with background and sources added in 2026. The original text is not republished here. You can read the original as it appeared on eJazzNews via the Internet Archive.
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