Home » Jazz Musicians » Rez Abbasi

Rez Abbasi

Voted #1 Rising-Star Guitarist in the 2013 DownBeat Critics Poll and subsequently placed in the “Top-Ten Guitarists” alongside luminaries Bill Frisell and Pat Metheny, guitarist and composer Rez Abbasi is one of the most original voices on the current scene.

Born in Karachi, Pakistan, removed at the age of four to the vastness of Southern California, schooled at the University of Southern California and the Manhattan School of Music in jazz and classical music, along with a pilgrimage in India under the guidance of master percussionist, Ustad Alla Rakha, Rez Abbasi is a vivid synthesis of all the above stated influences and genres. Making New York home for the past 25 years, Abbasi is considered by many to be one of the foremost modern jazz guitar players the world over. He has honed his skills with performances throughout Europe, Canada, the U.S., Mexico and India and has performed and recorded with many jazz greats including, Grammy winner Ruth Brown, Peter Erskine, Kenny Werner, Barre Phillips, Tim Berne, Michael Formanek, Billy Hart, Gary Thomas, Dave Douglas, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Mike Clark, Tim Hagans, John Beasly, Ronu Majumdar, Kadri Gopalnath, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Vijay Iyer, Marilyn Crispell, Greg Osby, Howard Levy and a host of others.

With 14 albums of mostly original compositions under his belt, Abbasi continues to find new groups of musicians to help his musical vision come to life. His 2005 recording Snake Charmer, created a stir in the music world partly due to his organic, original approach in blending two complex musical genres together, namely jazz and Indian music. The provocative instrumentation of organ, drums and guitar alongside Indian vocalist Kiran Ahluwalia, is on one hand, a sound grounded in jazz and yet uncommon in jazz arenas. 20th Century Guitar reviewed the CD as, “One of the best examples yet of how to merge Indian Classical music with jazz…Snake Charmer really breaks new ground.” In 2007, Rez achieved even greater heights with the follow up to Snake Charmer, Bazaar. Bazaar continues the group’s journey through territories unheard in today’s jazz/world music scene.

Abbasi’s sixth album, Things To Come (Sunnyside, 2009) is yet another leap into unchartered musical territory. It features a star-studded group of Vijay Iyer, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Kiran Ahluwalia, Johannes Weidenmueller and Dan Weiss and was included in DownBeat’s top CD’s of the decade. The same year he was awarded the prestigious Chamber Music America Grant as a commission to compose new works for the same ensemble, Invocation. At the end of 2009, Abbasi formed a new quartet. The Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quartet, or RAAQ, was conceived for the purposes of featuring Abbasi’s acoustic guitar talents. Simultaneously, it serves as an outlet to feature his compositions alongside “gems from other composers that are rarely heard today.” Abbasi was well aware of creating a group that would magnify and enhance his acoustic guitar sound – calling upon vibraphonist, Bill Ware (Steely Dan), bassist, Stephan Crump (Vijay Iyer Trio) and drummer, Eric McPherson (Andrew Hill). RAAQ’s debut, Natural Selection (Sunnyside, 2010) captures the profound sensitivity of the ensemble as it twists and turns through the set, featuring the standout textural cascades created between acoustic guitar and vibraphone. The album was included in JazzTimes’ and NPR’s ‘best of’ the year lists and the New York Times did a feature review of the CD release concert. RAAQ performed at the 2010 Newport Jazz Festival which was recorded and broadcasted several times on NPR’s JazzSet with Dee Dee Bridgewater.

Read more

Tags

5
Radio & Podcasts

Rez Abbasi: Charm

Read "Rez Abbasi: Charm" reviewed by David Bixler


Guitarist Rez Abbasi's recordings illustrate an artist that is pressing on, going for something new, rather than making alterations to what he has already done. So when sitarist Josh Feinberg approached him about a possible Indian-jazz collaboration he initially declined, as he already had several successful recordings of this nature with pianist Vijay Iyer and saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. However, he fortunately reconsidered and they recorded Charm, a recording that is fresh and likely unlike anything that you have heard before. ...

33
Album Review

Alternative Guitar Summit: Honoring Pat Martino, Volume 1

Read "Honoring Pat Martino, Volume 1" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Each year the Alternative Guitar Summit, led by Joel Harrison, presents a concert to honor a living jazz composer/guitarist. That wasn't possible in 2021, however, as venues in and around New York City were shuttered tight by the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, it was clear that the chosen honoree, the great Pat Martino, was gravely ill and might not have another year to live. With that in mind, members of the Summit took their guitars straight to a studio to record ...

Album Review

Amina Figarova: Persistence

Read "Persistence" reviewed by Maurizio Zerbo


Il pregio della varietà sostanzia la cifra artistica della pianista Amina Figarova, non circoscritta entro i soli confini del jazz. Dopo il progetto orchestrale del penultimo CD, la musicista azera residente a New York apre la finestra del suo etereo pensiero compositivo verso i territori della fusion, del funk, del rap. Da queste premesse discende un disco ibrido nella sua eccellente realizzazione, che testimonia la continua evoluzione del jazz e la nobiltà dei suoi migliori protagonisti. A far da tessuto ...

Album Review

Rez Abbasi: A Throw of Dice by The Silent Ensemble

Read "A Throw of Dice by The Silent Ensemble" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Rez Abbasi, classe 1965, pakistano di nascita ma californiano d'adozione fin dalla più tenera età, è il principale protagonista di questo album (che del resto reca la sua firma in calce), giocato nel segno di una musica di sicuro referente jazzistico, però con forti infiltrazioni etniche, com'è del resto usuale nel chitarrista (del quale, en passant, segnaliamo anche Oasis, a doppia firma con l'arpista francese Isabelle Olivier, inciso in quartetto su Enja l'anno dopo questo A Throw of Dice, 2018 ...

34
Interview

Rez Abbasi: On balancing picture with music and shifting into Django mode

Read "Rez Abbasi: On balancing picture with music and shifting into Django mode" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann


To really distinguish oneself in today's vast universe of guitarists, even within the confines of jazz, more and more resembles a Sisyphus task. When so much has been said and done, a specific tone or distinctive vocabulary alone no longer suffice to set an artist apart from the crowd. It is only through the sum of the different parts--various technical, aesthetic and even philosophical ones--that a musician is able to claim a place among the original voices on the instrument. ...

15
Album Review

Rez Abbasi: Django-shift

Read "Django-shift" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann


Talking about shifting. American guitarist Rez Abbasi seems capable of shifting shape and changing form from one project to the next like a creature from a J.R.R. Tolkien adventure—almost beyond recognition. If it weren't for the guitarist's inspired fret fingerings and rushed scale runs giving him his utterly unique spark. Between much praised quintet recording Unfiltered Universe (Whirlwind Recordings, 2017) and the Indian-infused collaboration Indo-Pak Coalition comprised of himself, Dan Weiss and Rudresh Mahanthappa releasing Agrima (Self Produced, ...

14
Album Review

Rez Abbasi: Django-shift

Read "Django-shift" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


Django Reinhardt's music is so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget his career was relatively brief. The gypsy guitarist/composer had recorded hundreds of 78s and acetates before he died of a stroke in 1953 at age forty-three. On many early sides, he played a six-string banjo-guitar hybrid tuned in the standard tuning of a guitar. Norman Granz produced the only full LP Reinhardt session two months before the artist passed. Along with over twenty posthumous compilation releases, Nuages (Verve, 1953) ...

Read more articles
1

Recording

Rez Abbasi and Josh Feinberg’s Naya Baaz Release ‘Charm’

Rez Abbasi and Josh Feinberg’s Naya Baaz Release ‘Charm’

Source: Fully Altered Media

Charm is the debut release from Naya Baaz–a groundbreaking new collaboration between two extraordinary musicians, both of whom have achieved a rare level of mastery in demanding musical traditions from opposite sides of the globe. Recent Guggenheim Fellow, Rez Abbasi moved from Karachi to California as a child and has built up a formidable reputation as a guitarist who combines his love of jazz (evidenced on his last major release, Django-Shift) with an international array of influences from South Asia ...

3

Performance / Tour

International Jazz Project, Oasis, On Tour In Eastern US, November 2021

International Jazz Project, Oasis, On Tour In Eastern US, November 2021

Source: Danielle Devlin

French Embassy, DC; JCTC White Eagle Hall, NJ; Firehouse 12, CT Oasis (Enja Records/Yellowbird), the 2019 recording from award-winning guitarist and 2021 Guggenheim fellow Rez Abbasi and compelling French harpist Isabelle Olivier, makes the pairing of their respective instruments sound predestined. OASIS—Olivier Abbasi Sound In Sound—is a rich, acoustic conversation between harp and guitar, offering unique opportunities in harmony, rhythm, and texture. Joining them on stage for this pandemic-delayed tour in support of their new album is NYC-based percussionist, Michael ...

1

For Sale

10 New Vinyl Releases Available Now For Ordering – Lee Konitz, Rez Abbasi, Tori Freestone, Gareth Lockrane, Walter Smith III + More

10 New Vinyl Releases Available Now For Ordering – Lee Konitz, Rez Abbasi, Tori Freestone, Gareth Lockrane, Walter Smith III + More

Source: Emma Perry Publicity

Announcing 10 new limited edition vinyl albums: Whirlwind is delighted to dig into their back catalog and make available for the first time a limited edition printing of First Meeting: Live in London Volume 1, by Lee Konitz, Dan Tepfer, Michael Janisch and Jeff Williams. One of the label's all-time most popular releases, this new double LP with gatefold artwork features the entire album recorded live in London across 4 sides of music on 180 gram, Purple Vinyl. This is ...

126

Recording

Rez Abbasi - Suno Suno (Enja, 2011)

Rez Abbasi - Suno Suno (Enja, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Guitarist and composer Rez Abbasi has been developing a unique conception of the song form and improvisation that draws from a wide variety of influences, including Qawwali is a form of Sufi devotional music. Joining him on this album is a band consisting of: Rudresh Mahanthappa on alto saxophone, Vijay Iyer on piano, Johannes Weidenmuller on bass and Dan Weiss on drums. For the most part, the album is made up of lengthy, dynamic suite-like performances, beginning with “Thanks for ...

98

Recording

Rez Abbasi's Invocation -- Suno Suno (2011)

Rez Abbasi's Invocation -- Suno Suno (2011)

Source: Something Else!

There's a trance-like euphoria surrounding this emotional, at times indescribably spiritual endeavor. Rez Abbasi, leading a group that also includes Rudresh Mahanthappa and Vijay Iyer, found inspiration for Suno Suno from Pakistani Qawwali, a devotional Sufi music that was popularized in the West by singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. As with traditional gospel music, Qawwali is often populated with heart-filling themes of uplift, but it also includes these thrillingly circular, repeated melodies—something that gives the music passion and joy, but ...

160

Recording

Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quartet - Natural Selection (Sunnyside, 2010)

Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quartet - Natural Selection (Sunnyside, 2010)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

After making a name for himself with some excellent albums featuring his electric guitar playing (notably 2009's Things to Come) Rez Abassi decided to move into a different direction forming an all acoustic quartet that was featured at the Newport Jazz Festival with Bill Ware on vibraphone, Stephan Crump on bass and Eric McPherson on drums. The group achieves an intimate and thoughtful sound that is very interesting to listen to. “Lament" opens the album with a nice rhythm, featuring ...

127

153

Radio

The Jazz Session #122: Rez Abbasi

The Jazz Session #122: Rez Abbasi

Source: Michael Ricci

Guitarist Rez Abbasi continues his rhythmic and harmonic explorations on Things To Come (Sunnyside, 2009). Hes joined on this album by pianist Vijay Iyer, saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa, bassist Johannes Weidenmeuller, drummer Dan Weiss, cellist Mike Block and vocalist Kiran Ahluwalia. In this interview, Abbasi discusses the Indian-Pakistani jazz scene in New York; how he incorporates Indian and Pakistani music into his compositions even without the use of traditional instruments; and why he feels his best compositions are combinations of craft ...

174

Interview

East Meets West in the Music of Rez Abbasi

East Meets West in the Music of Rez Abbasi

Source: All About Jazz @ Spinner

One of the most interesting jazz arrivals in recent years has been the emergence of South Asian guitarist Rez Abbasi, pianist Vijay Iyer and saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa. All three are truly jazz musicians of the highest order, but they also draw upon their cultural heritage as South Asians (Abbasi is Pakistani and the other two are Indian) to develop their individual visions of jazz. Abbasi's brand-new album, Things to Come, features the trio as well as ...

99

Recording

New Rez Abbasi Disc, "Things to Come" out August 25 on Sunnyside

New Rez Abbasi Disc, "Things to Come" out August 25 on Sunnyside

Source: Fully Altered Media

Pakistani-American Guitarist Rez Abbasi Releases Things to Come, August 25th on Sunnyside Records Album Features Stunning Composition and Improvisation From Culturally Diverse Top New York Musicians (Rudresh Mahanthappa, Vijay Iyer, Johannes Weidenmueller, Dan Weiss + Special Guests Kiran Ahluwalia and Mike Block) Sunnyside Records is pleased to present Things to Come, guitarist and composer Rez Abbasi’s latest solo project and first for the prominent jazz label. Imagine if you will, a four year old boy arriving in Los Angeles, CA ...

"An amazing guitarist…unique and beautiful music—and best of all—very original." —Pat Metheny

"Rez is an extremely talented guitarist and composer… unique and surprising." —Peter Erskine

"Producing so vivid a music that it can almost be tasted, Abbasi sounds like no one who has gone before him. His compositions are sheer genius." —All About Jazz

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Charm

Whirlwind Recordings
2023

buy

Honoring Pat Martino,...

HighNote Records
2022

buy

Persistence

Self Produced
2020

buy

Django-shift

Whirlwind Recordings
2020

buy

A Throw Of Dice

Whirlwind Recordings
2019

buy

OASIS

Enja Records/Yellowbird
2019

buy

Bekhayal (Without A Thought)

From: Charm
By Rez Abbasi

Django's Castle

From: Django-shift
By Rez Abbasi

Timeline

From: OASIS
By Rez Abbasi

Mystery Rising

From: A Throw Of Dice
By Rez Abbasi

Videos

Similar

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.