Waterford native Tosh Sheridan has spent years in the New York City jazz scene establishing himself as a superb acoustic nylon string guitarist in the style of his mentor, Gene Bertoncini.

But sometimes you can't - or don't want to - ignore your roots.

In this case, as with many guitarists of an era, Sheridan grew up listening to hard rock icons from Jimi Hendrix to Slash in Guns n' Roses. Tangentially, he grew to love the blues of Muddy Waters and the lockjaw New Orleans funk of The Meters. As Sheridan's chops improved, he grew interested in jazz and, after graduating from the Berklee School of Music, moved to New York and started a career.

In the past few years, though, while maintaining his regular gigs, Sheridan began performing with pals bassist Dan Shuman and drummer Yuichi Hirakawa - two artists also enmeshed in the jazz scene - and the material he composed for them to play, on electric guitar, was rooted in rock, blues and funk.

As the songs gelled, the newly christened Tosh Sheridan Trio entered the studio last summer and recorded a six-song, self-titled EP. They'll celebrate the release of the recording with a performance Saturday in Old Lyme's Side Door Jazz Club.

"I picked up the electric guitar again because it's fun to play loud," Sheridan laughs from his New York apartment. "And we started playing music that connects on some levels with a wider audience. I love my solo guitar stuff, but often there's a much smaller audience. In concert, you have a listening situation, but in a bar or something, it's hard to get people's attention."

By chance, Sheridan was doing a residency gig at a Manhattan wine bar, and the owners suggested the music was a bit too mellow. Sheridan introduced his new trio and electric sound, and the effect was instantaneous.

"By the end of the first night, the whole place was dancing and we knew we were onto something. It's not exactly the reaction you'd expect in a wine bar, but no one was complaining," he says.

Anyone who hears "Tosh Sheridan Trio" is likely to have the same celebratory reaction. The instrumental music simmers and grooves with tight, slinky riffs and snake-bite guitar fills. The tunes are hooky, concise and performed with glee and energy - as though John Scofield and the Fabulous Thunderbirds finally got together after having been pals since Little League. There's an organic flow and cohesion to the music that arguably wouldn't be there if Sheridan had hired session players.

"I met Dan and Yuichi about 10 years ago at a summer guitar workshop," Sheridan says. "They're great players and they're like-minded, very intuitive and playing together is just very easy. Honestly, we've never even had a rehearsal. I'll hand the lead sheets at the gig and we work it out and it gels while we play. It comes down to knowing each other well and enjoying the looseness of the music - and the unknown factor's part of the fun."

Sheridan knows that, in a music industry dominated by downloads and social media, his EP isn't likely to draw much national attention.

"It's kind of weird because almost no one plugs something into a CD player anymore and listens to an entire album as an artistic statement. Everything goes into an iPod shuffle. But that's okay. We'll do another EP in the spring, I hope, and keep serving up these bite-sized bits of music. And we'll do Twitter and Facebook and Spotify and iTunes and probably not see a lot of financial return from any of it. But it becomes almost sort of a musical business card to some extent - and you get your name and the music out there any way you can."

As a working player in a hyper-competitive music scene like New York, Sheridan will continue to write and perform with the Trio, he'll do his solo and duo jazz gigs, do recording sessions and sideman gigs with singer-songwriters, and score music for independent dance and short film projects.

"I'm having a blast playing in any context," Sheridan says. "And then I get to come home and play an incredible venue like the Side Door. It's pretty humbling when you look at the list of the artists who've played there, but we're excited and looking forward to playing in front of friends and family. It's a great opportunity."

Tosh Sheridan Trio, doors 7:30 p.m., show 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Side Door Jazz Club, 85 Lyme Street, Old Lyme; $28.50; (860) 434-0886.