Rez Abbasi Chromatic Composer ez Abbasi follows a self-imposed mandate Rto balance the heartfelt and the theoretical on his 2011 album Suno Suno (Enja). “If it ven- tures off too much either way, it loses me,” says the guitarist. “I like being right in the middle.” Abbasi recorded the album with his Invocation quintet: Rudresh Mahanthappa (alto saxophone), Vijay Iyer (piano), Johannes Weidenmueller (bass) and Dan Weiss (drums). The seven-tune suite contains much high- grooves and scales of Indian qawwali music IA (think Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) with the struc- L A W tural language of modern jazz. U “Anybody can hire great musicians and AHL call it a group,” Abbasi says. “These guys inter- KIRAN nalize all kinds of music, and I want to use obsessed rocker converted to jazz after hear- that as much as I can. I also want to project ing Joe Pass play with Ella Fitzgerald. Abbasi upon them my own concept. Here I wanted the assimilated the vocabularies of George grooves to inform the full composition—some- Benson, Pat Martino and Wes Montgomery, thing I’ve learned from listening to qawwali. and then pledged allegiance to Jim Hall for Writing is the one element that I can take my his compositional approach to improvising. time with and remanipulate as many times as Abbasi attended the University of Southern necessary before presenting the compositions. California, studying guitar, conducting and Then I want them to do what they do—to inter- orchestration, and then enrolled at Manhattan pret it any way they want.” School of Music. On both Suno Suno and the 2009 Sunnyside At 18, he met tabla master Zakir Hussain at CD Things To Come, the guitarist’s detailed a house party; at 20, Abbasi started investiga- scores facilitate improvisational derring-do. tions into Indian classical music that includ- “The compositions are quite intricate, with ed a year in India observing Hussain’s father, the piano part entirely written out, down to Ustad Alla Rakha, and another year studying the voicings I play,” Iyer remarks. “Some piec- tabla with one of Rakha’s disciples. However, es are episodic—the notated material moves it as indicated by the absence of overtly Indian through two or three different zones, with shifts elements in his recordings until 2003’s Snake in tempo and underlying groove. And when Charmer (Earth Sounds), Abbasi was “appre- Rez improvises, he’s deeply in the moment, hensive about applying Indian music to jazz” fretted instrument, a continuous rather than “It had to be on a different level than John discrete approach to melody.” Coltrane, who did the modal application of Before a CD-release gig at New York’s Jazz Indian music as well as it can be done—or Standard in December, Abbasi—fresh from a Alice Coltrane or Shakti,” Abbasi explains. three-week sojourn as music director-guitar- “If you don’t have a fresh concept, what else ist for his wife, the vocalist Kiran Ahluwalia— do you have? I continued to study it because I decided he had to go deep in the shed. love it.” He decided to let his knowledge sur- “My music is highly chromatic,” Abbasi face after seeing Mahanthappa and Iyer per- says. “Most of Kiran’s music is raga-based form as a duo—as well as a couple of groups or scale-based; you can’t veer too much, and doing drum-and-bass themed Indian music— I yield to that approach. From that discipline in the early ’00s. comes a great deal of character. But when I “I felt validated,” he recalls. “‘OK, these play solos, I don’t like to think too much. It’s guys are doing a good job at it, and I’ve got my got to be free. So when I got back, to get out of own ideas—and what am I waiting for?’ When I those trenches, I practiced chromaticism.” met my wife, it was even more validation. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, and raised in “Coltrane and Keith Jarrett are the pinnacle Los Angeles, Abbasi, 45, heard Indian music because they’re not limited. They can play one early on—his father, a doctor, liked to sing note at a time or a thousand notes. It’s not about ghazals around the house; aunts and uncles technique or playing fast. It’s about expression.” sang at weddings. At age 16, the Van Halen- —Ted Panken.