The India Series #2 - Louis Banks

Louis Banks (born 11 February 1941 as Dambar Bahadur Budaprithi in Darjeeling, West Bengal, India) is a Grammy Award nominated film composer, record producer, jazz musician-keyboardist and singer. Proficient in genres like Indipop, modern progressive and contemporary jazz and Indo jazz fusion, he has often been referred to as the Godfather of Indian Jazz.

Banks was born to Sarswati and George Banks, a musician. His early music education was at the hands of his father and neighbor Mrs. Myers. His father Pushkar Bahadur, a Nepalese trumpeter who moved to Calcutta in the early 1940s to join a European Band in the city, changed his name to George Banks. His grandfather, Bakhat Bahadur Budapirti, had composed the Nepalese national anthem Shreeman Gambhira Nepali which was the official anthem from 1962 to 2006.