AT the risk of name-place-dropping, I first met guitarist David Preston at Abbey Road Studios, where he was recording with Ian Shaw and the late, much-missed Peter Ind, the Gandalf of the acoustic bass. Preston came across as a quite shy and retiring young man but who nevertheless chose his notes with precision and intelligence. He still works with Shaw (he co-wrote much of the excellent Lifejacket album and is part of the Greek Street Friday album and live ensemble) but also has a thriving career as a sideman and most recently a solo artist.

No longer so shy and retiring (or quite so young – that Abbey Road meeting was back in 2010, which makes me Methuselah), the intelligence and commitment are still there, bolstered by instincts honed by years of gigging live. All this is well demonstrated on his Purple/Black Volume 1 album, the first under his own name, which features a top-of-the-range band in pianist Kit Downes, Kevin Glasgow on bass and Seb Rochford on drums.

It was designed, in his words, as an “in the room” dialogue between the individuals. It isn’t, as many jazz debut albums are, a showcase for speed or stamina or the ability to cram as many chord and key changes as is humanly possible into five frenetic minutes. It is for the most part more reflective than that, the touchstones, if you need them, being Bill Frisell, the more introspective side of Pat Metheny and perhaps early John Abercrombie. Although they are merely suggested to these ears, rather than overt influences.

Not that Preston & Co can’t bust out the chops – Cassino Dream, for example, features fabulously fleet-fingered interchanges between Downes and the leader. The album opens with O’Winston, a reference to the great American photographer of railroads, O’ Winston Link, and is intended to evoke the feeling of riding a train through the mountains in Virginia (it begins with an insistently hooky ostinato bass from Glasgow, at once prowling and probing).

The title track is built on Preston’s favourite power chords, but as with so much on the album, it subverts any expectations from that statement, being both doomy and optimistic.

There is much to enjoy here even for those who don’t normally like jazz guitar, and I found that the record reveals more delights with each listen, especially when you home in on what Rochford is up to, nimbly driving or supporting the other players. Incidentally, the last cut, the lovely, quietly twisty Susie Q’s, is not a celebration of a well-known bass-playing pop legend – that’s Suzi Q – but north London’s jazz wunderkid Jacob Collier’s mum.

You can hear Preston in a trio setting unveiling a new project at The Parakeet in Kentish Town on Monday 29th April. See https://jazzattheparakeet.com/