Born Dambar Bahadur Budaprithi on February 11, 1941, in Darjeeling, India, the singer, songwriter, keyboardist, and producer is better-known by his stage name Louis Banks. With a long and varied career, his has been called the Godfather of Indian Jazz. He was born into a musical family: his grandfather, Bakhat Bahadur Budaprithi, composed the Nepalese national anthem (1926-2006), and his father, Pushkar Bahadur, was a trumpeter who changed his name to George Banks. At the age of 13, he became interested in western music and learned to play the guitar and trumpet. At this point, his father changed his name to Louis Banks. He took piano lessons, continuing to study the instrument when he attended St. Joseph’s College. Moving to Kathmandu, he discovered jazz music and was performing publicly in the late 1960s. He relocated to Calcutta in 1971 and formed the Luis Banks Brotherhood, which led to him composing musicals and advertising jingles. Moving to Mumbai, Louis Banks was introduced to many world music genres as he became a part of the city’s music scene. After playing in several different bands in the late 1970s and early 1980s, his style of Indian jazz began to attract a lot of attention. He provided music for iconic short films such as Mile Sur Mera Tumhara (1988) as well as full-length motion pictures including New Delhi Times (1986), Hum (1991) and Barsaat (1995). While he worked on his film music, Louis Banks also released a series of well-received albums including The Freedom Run (1997), Miles from India (2008), Floating Point with John McLaughlin (2008), Labyrinth (2011), and Solo Piano Ballads (2011).
