India-born and California-raised, guitarist/composer Rez Abbasi--a resident of New York City for over a decade now--has been perfecting his own unique East-meets-West musical hybrid of Indian and jazz musics for some time. With the releases of Snake Charmer (Earth Sounds, 2005) and Bazaar (Zoho Music, 2006), he's perfected his formula, in part because his core group of drummer Danny Weiss, organist Gary Versace and vocalist Kiran Ahluwalia--supported on the former by master soprano sax player Dave Liebman and on the latter by several guest players--seems to be the perfect band to carry out the technical and emotional demands of Abbasi's compositions.
Contributing Editor Paul Olson spoke at length with Abbasi about his group, the challenge of finding a personal nexus of classical Indian forms and western jazz harmonies, and how his work transcends fad-ish “east meets west" movements to create something deeper and more enduring.
Check out Rez Abbasi: Microtones, Fearlessness and the Fifteen-Step Process at AAJ today!
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