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Ravi Knypstra

Ravi Knypstra was born and raised in Los Angeles and grew up in North Hollywood. At the age of six Ravi started playing the trumpet, and played all the way through his first year in college, when he began to play the bass, discovering that when played well, the bass actually has the power to steer the music in more directions than lead instruments do.

Ravi played in blues, country and rock & roll bands for the first couple of years he spent as a bass player, playing all over the San Joaquin valley while attending college. After spending three-plus years pursuing an engineering degree at Fresno State, Ravi dropped out, moved home to Los Angeles and attended the Musician’s Institute in 1992-93, leaving the school with honors from their BIT program. Even though the school did and still does have a reputation as a “rock” school, Ravi spent all his time at the school in the care of tremendous players and teachers, who could answer any musical question arose, in any style, and it was there that he began to learn about the role the bass carries in that great traditional American art form known as Jazz. He didn’t realize it at the time, but as far as the bass goes, Ravi was already hooked.

After school Ravi toured the coast of California extensively with Agustin Lira and Patricia Wells-Solorzano’s group “Alma.” Ravi also toured extensively in Europe, playing roots and country music, and toured across the United States from coast to coast as well. Since then he has played literally thousands of shows, primarily in California but also in Japan, India, Thailand, Cuba, and across the United States. Ravi’s musical tastes run the gamut, including folk music, Mexican, Cuban, Brazilian, funk, soul, R & B, blues, rare groove, fusion, pop, songwriter stuff, and of course, all forms shapes and sizes of jazz ensembles, from two- to 20-piece bands.
Around 2000, Ravi started to become interested in recording music, and since then he has engineered and produced several full length CDs. He remains active a live performer and stufio bass player in all styles, playing upright and electric bass, as a tracking/mixing studio engineer for ensembles from two-piece to twenty-piece, and a live performance mix engineer as well. He is also faculty at Musician’s Institute in Hollywood where he teaches the incoming bass students music reading.

Ravi has appeared on television shows for MTV, Showtime, Bravo and on the Jimmy Kimmel Live Show and The Carson Daly Show. His playing has been in movies for HBO and the Sundance Film Festival. His true love is jazz, and he has played or recorded with jazz artists such as Plas Johnson, Sam and Abe Most, Kim Richmond, Joey Heredia, Paul Kreibich, Jake Hanna, Steve Pemberton, Dale Fielder, Dave Pell, Pete Christlieb, Gary Herbig and Bob Summers and dozens of others.