Ravi Abcarian started playing music on guitar at age seven and became interested in jazz as a teenager. He began playing bass when his high school band director challenged him to switch from electric guitar to double bass. Ravi quickly developed a love for his new instrument. Soon, he was studying with master bassist Herbie Lewis while helping the Berkeley High Jazz Ensemble collect regular awards at jazz competitions held all over the state of California.

After high school, Abcarian went on to join the house band for a weekly jam session at famed Oakland, California, jazz venue Yoshi's Night Spot. There, he met and began working with many of the San Francisco Bay Area's great musicians, including Faye Carol, Edwin Kelly, and Smiley Winters.

After studying with esteemed music theory and arranging professor Elvo D’Amante, Ravi began composing and arranging for many of the groups with whom he performs. He has since provided music for the award-winning dance video "In Public Spaces," and his pieces have been recorded by the Pacific Wave Jazz Orchestra and the Mark Wright Sextet.

Seeing the importance of jazz remaining a community based form of music, Ravi teaches jazz to young musicians at two different after school programs. He is the Artistic Director of "The Richmond Jazz Collective" a resident company at The East Bay Center for Performing Arts in Richmond, California and he is the Educational Director of the Oaktown Jazz Workshop in Oakland, California.