Louiz Banks A Symphony of Love - by Ashis Ghatak | Revolver Book Club By Verus Ferreira
Understanding of music, especially jazz, is not essential to enjoy Ghatak’s engaging book ’Louiz Banks – A Symphony of Love’. The words entrap us in an atmosphere that shows love, adoration, admiration, and wonder for the person he is writing about.
The book is written by Kolkata based Ashis Ghatak, an English teacher at a government – aided school. It took Ghatak almost five years to put the book together. Ghatak is also a film and music enthusiast, a photographer and an avid traveler, he has to his credit many academic books as well as travelogues in various travel magazines.
In ‘A Note from Louiz Banks’, Banks states that the book ‘was divine intervention’. Banks recalls his first meeting with Ghatak in Calcutta at a RD Burman tribute show. Ghatak a diehard fan of RD Burman is part of a group that runs a foundation named Euphony that organizes musical shows with the original musicians who accompanied RD Burman. It was on Panchamda’s 74th birth anniversary that the group invited Banks, the man who unabashedly acknowledges Burman as his godfather. Two years later Ghatak stumbled onto a YouTube interview where, in two episodes, Banks had narrated his journey. “The idea of writing this book was triggered after seeing that interview. I wanted to know more about the man” states an excited Ghatak in his Prologue.
What followed was meeting Banks in person on several occasions, listening to his music, interacting with his children, chats on WhatsApp, emails, chatting with the greatest names of the Indo – jazz fusion music industry veterans to record many of the stories about the enigmatic musician and also journeying to places like Darjeeling, Nepal, Mumbai to trace the growth of Banks from boyhood to adulthood.
The book offers a riveting account of the great pianist that is Louiz Banks which is not just limited to his artistic endeavors or his personal life, but also the environment that produced Banks and honed him.
Ghatak’s account proves to be a fascinatingly detailed look into the life of the Godfather of Indian Jazz.
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