Rez Abbasi

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Pakistan-born American jazz musician

title: "Rez Abbasi" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["jazz-fusion-musicians", "american-jazz-composers", "american-male-jazz-composers", "american-music-educators", "american-jazz-guitarists", "1965-births", "living-people", "musicians-from-karachi", "20th-century-american-guitarists", "american-male-guitarists", "20th-century-american-male-musicians", "sunnyside-records-artists", "enja-records-artists", "cuneiform-records-artists", "guitarists-from-new-york-city", "jazz-musicians-from-new-york-city", "whirlwind-recordings-artists"] description: "Pakistan-born American jazz musician" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rez_Abbasi" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Pakistan-born American jazz musician ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist"]

Field	Value
name	Rez Abbasi
image	rez-abbasi_DSC01770.jpg
birth_date
birth_place	Karachi, Pakistan
genre	Jazz, jazz fusion, Indian classical
occupation	Musician, composer, producer
instrument	Guitar
years_active	1990–present
label	Sunnyside, Enja, Cuneiform
spouse	Kiran Ahluwalia
website
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Biography

Abbasi was born in Karachi, Pakistan. When he was four, his family moved to Los Angeles, and at eleven he started learning guitar. He spent his early teens playing in rock bands. Inspired at a concert featuring vocalist Ella Fitzgerald and guitarist Joe Pass, he began to pursue jazz and classical music.

Abbasi studied guitar at the University of Southern California and at the Manhattan School of Music. After graduating in 1989, he spent a couple months in India studying tabla with Alla Rakha, which kindled an interest in the music of India and Pakistan.

He traveled to India to study under master tabla player Ustad Alla Rakha, to develop an east–west fusion style. However, as he told Guitar Player magazine, "I’ve never studied the sitar or the sarod because to really learn to play either of them I would have had to give up everything else. So, I learned some of the techniques on what you might call a jazz street level. ... [I] have been influenced by rock and roll and jazz and other music since I was a kid."

He has been a member of the Indo-Pak Coalition and Dakshani, two groups led by saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, and has played and arranged for his wife and singer Kiran Ahluwalia. He has also worked with Billy Hart, D. D. Jackson, Dave Liebman, Dave Pietro, Gary Thomas, Gary Versace, Kenny Werner, Marvin Smith, Rick Margitza, Sunny Jain, Tim Hagans, and Tony Malaby.

Discography

As leader

Rez Abbasi (Self-released, 1993)
Third Ear (Cathexis, 1995)
Modern Memory (Cathexis, 1998)
Out of Body (String Jazz, 2002)
Snake Charmer (Earth Sounds, 2005)
Bazaar (Zoho, 2006)
Things to Come (Sunnyside, 2009)
Natural Selection (Sunnyside, 2010)
Suno Suno (Enja, 2011)
Continuous Beat (Enja, 2012)
Intents and Purposes (Enja, 2015)
Behind the Vibration (Cuneiform, 2016)
Unfiltered Universe (Whirlwind, 2017)
A Throw of Dice (Whirlwind, 2019)
Django-Shift (Whirlwind, 2020)
Oasis with Isabelle Oliver (Enja, 2020)
Charm (Whirlwind, 2023)

As guest

Kiran Ahluwalia, Aam Zameen: Common Ground (Self-released 2011)
Kiran Ahluwalia, Wanderlust (World Connection, 2007)
Mike Clark, Carnival of Soul (Owl Studios, 2010)
Sunny Jain, Mango Festival (Zoho, 2004)
Rudresh Mahanthappa, Kinsmen (Pi, 2008)
Rudresh Mahanthappa, Apti (Innova, 2008)
Dave Pietro, The Chakra Suite (Challenge, 2008)
Adam Rudolph, Turning Towards the Light (Cuneiform, 2015)

References

Sources

Bielefeld Catalogue, 1988 & 2002
Richard Cook and Brian Morton:* The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings*, 8th Edition, London, Penguin, 2006,
Official site

References

"With His Band, Invocation, Guitarist Rez Abbasi Puts an Indian Spin on Jazz".
(2013). "The Great Jazz guitarists". Backbeat.
"Rez Abbasi's Invocation (Performance 2)".
[https://www.guitarplayer.com/miscellaneous/rez-abbasi Cleveland, Barry, "Pakistani-born guitarist and composer Rez Abbasi is in many ways the embodiment of East-West fusion"] {{Webarchive. link. (2019-10-03 , ''[[Guitar Player]]'', Jan 31, 2011 (updated Nov 15, 2017))

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