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. 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==