Jazz guitarist extraordinaire Pritesh Walia has been bubbling under the surface of wider public awareness and acclaim for several years.

His nimble technical skills and deep sense of musicality has been making its mark in performances as a leader and as sideman, while his strides in education—after graduating from Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory–have helped to spread his message in that capacity.

But with the release of Walia’s impressive debut album Hopetown, featuring his guitar trio with bassist Chris Worden and drummer Gen Yoshimura, Walia is poised to go public in a more game-changing way.

His long-awaited recording debut, a fresh and deep excursion into the neo-mainstream, clean-toned jazz guitar trio tradition, boldly initiates the discography portion of his career, with yet three other varied albums soon to follow.

Earlier this year, he released the self-titled album with his organ trio PSA, and coming soon are albums by his big band and a special strings project.

1. Hope Town
2. Low Talks
3. Staying Home
4. Low Talks
5. Finishing Up
6. Colors
7. Brief
8. Blackbird

The New Delhi-born and currently Los Angeles-based Walia, opens his new album on the joyfully infectious title track Hope Town and the fervently-charged Low Talks and then we get brought forth the quietly furtive, yet notably low slung foot tapper Staying Home and the gracefully sculpted Low Talks.

Along next is the bittersweet, yet sprightly nuances that breathe within Finishing Up which is in turn backed seamlessly by the flirtatiously playful Colors, the album rounding out on the perky Brief, coming to a close on his enraptured, slightly subversive rendition of the Beatles’ beloved Blackbird.

When it came time to record Hopetown, Walia was insistent that it be in a live way, together in a studio with sight lines between his highly empathetic bandmates. Jazz, he asserts, is “communicative music. I want to have a line of sight to cue a lot of things. Also, there’s something about visually being able to see each other that helps us improvise. There are so many moments in the music where it feels like we’re all on the same page, in the same stream of consciousness.”

Pritesh Walia Jazz Trio - Hope Town [Official Video]

www.priteshwaliamusic.com