JAZZ ROOM: Rez Abbasi Quartet

Overview

Award-winning Pakistani-American jazz guitarist and composer Rez Abbasi and his quartet make a JAZZ ROOM debut, bringing their signature sounds that push boundaries while preserving jazz tradition. His vivid sound encompasses provocative instrumentation with a unique and lively mix of rhythms and textures that will keep you on the edge of your seat for this special JAZZ ROOM experience.

Rez Abassi’s music has been dubbed “so vivid it can almost be tasted” by All About Jazz. Considered by many to be one of the foremost modern jazz guitar players in the world, his music is a vivid synthesis of his roots in Pakistan, his childhood in California, and schooling in jazz and classical sounds. His 2005 recording Snake Charmer created a stir due to his organic approach in blending two complex musical genres – jazz and Indian music.  He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship for composition in 2021 and voted "#1 Rising-Star Guitarist" in the 2013 DownBeat Critics Poll.

With 14 albums to his credit, Abbasi continues to partner with new groups of musicians to bring his musical vision to life. His Things to Come album of 2009 was named one of DownBeat’s "Top CD’s of the Decade." In 2019, he released a score for the silent film A Throw of Dice, which was produced in 1929 in India, based on one of two major Sanskrit works from the 8th century B.C.E. From there to his acoustically recast classic jazz-rock from the ‘70s, the artist truly spans all genres and times.