Pakistani Guitarist in America Fuses Jazz with Ghazal

Abbasi—whose earlier releases paint him as a swinging modernist in the John Scofield mode—was born in Karachi, Pakistan. Snake Charmer, the band, pays tribute to its leader’s roots in several different ways. The South Asian influences are reflected in more than Abbasi’s occasional use of the electric sitar: his wife, Ontario-raised Kiran Ahluwalia, brings her expertise as a ghazal singer to bear on his appropriately sinuous melodies, while drummer Dan Weiss is equally adept on jazz kit and tabla.