meet the artist Gino Banks

Gino Banks Biography

Born and raised in Mumbai India, Gino has been fooling around with the drums since he was 8 years old and took it up seriously at the age of 15. He is the son of Louiz Banks, India 's legendary jazz pianist and composer. He toured Australia and China with his fathers' indo-jazz fusion band SANGAM playing percussion when he was just 9 years old.

Gino is a versatile musician, this trait leads him to perform and record with artists and bands of all types of genres. Artists like his father Louiz Banks, Ustad Zakir Hussain, Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, Ustad Rashid Khan, the late great U.Srinivas, Fazal Qureshi, Taufiq Qureshi, Bikram Ghosh, Pt. Vikku Vinayakram, Sridar Parthasarathy, Sanjay Divecha and Karl Peters; to Bollywood sessions and gigs with A.R. Rahman, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Salim-Sulaiman, Vishal-Shekhar, Amit Trivedi, Pritam, and Hariharan; to fusion groups ARKA, Niladri Kumar, Rakesh Chaurasia's RAF, Ravi Chary Crossing, Mekaal Hasan Band, Ananthaal, Dhruv Ghanekar, Amaan & Ayaan Ali Khan, Stephen Devassy and Bala Bashkar; to pop/rock/blues bands like Indus Creed, Blackstrat Blues, Soulmate, Gary Lawyer, Baiju Dharmajan, Suneeta Rao, Skinny Alley, Joe Alvares, and Shefali Alvares. He has performed with international musicians like Dave Holland, Chris Potter, Mike Stern, Guthrie Govan, Tony Lakatos, George Brooks, The Maske Trio, Leni Stern,  Angela Hagenbach, Carl Clements and The Dallas Horns As well as with Dance Troupes like Pt. Birju Maharaj's Kathak Group, Aditi Bhagwat and Terence Lewis Contemporary Dance Company and many more.

Working on his own music as a composer as well as collaborating with extremely talented musicians like Sheldon D'Silva, Sangeet Haldipur, Rhythm Shaw, Kush Upadhyay, Mohini Dey, Satyajit Talwalkar, Ojas Adhiya, Giridhar Ghatam Udupa and many more.

As an in-demand session artist, he is also a producer, arranger, and runs his own studio production called Double Shift Productions.

He has also had the Honor and Privilege of playing a few tracks on the Miles From India Album produced by Bob Belden, nominated for a 2009 Grammy in the Contemporary Jazz Category with Times Square Records, NYC; a fusion of Great Indian Classical Musicians and Miles Davis Alumni Musicians.

Gino Banks endorses Meinl Percussion, Meinl Cymbals, Pearl Drums, Evans Drumheads, Promark Drumsticks, Puresound Percussion, Yamaha DTX Electronic Drums, Audix Microphones, and Sonodyne.

Country: India

Band: Independent