The best of new recordings in old genres are able to either create some new avenue for a music to go down or fool listeners into thinking that the album is from decade’s past. There’s obviously not a confluence of the two, but if there could be, it’d be pretty likely that Steve Reid, drummer to the stars, would come up with it.

Recording since he was just 17 – and playing for about a year prior to that with Quincy Jones – Reid has cut a career through which he’s been able to perform in any number of genres with a litany of rather famous and well respected players both new and old.

His first recording gig came at the behest of Martha Vandella as Reid worked behind the drums for “Dancing in the Streets,” which would soon be re-imagined by the Who over there in England. So even at this early stage in Reid’s career he found Keith Moon, perhaps the most exciting rock drummer to ever perform, taking cues from him. But this was only to be the beginning.

Meeting with John and Alice Coltrane, they lived in the neighborhood, lent Reid a certain spirituality about his playing that may have been absent otherwise. The couple also prompted the young drummer to move to Africa for three years during which time Reid performed with Fela Kuti and toured the continent.

It was in those years the Reid came to the realization that Africa was the birth-place of all things, but specifically drumming. Subsequently, he sought to spread that concept through his own recordings as he returned to the states briefly during the ‘70s.

Time back in the US wasn’t all that grand for the percussionist, though. He was deemed a draft dodger and sent up the river by a government that Reid opposed in a great many respects. The drummer would eventually move Switzerland where he’s remained for the duration of his career.

Coming back to the attention of US audiences, Reid collaborated with Kieran Hebden, better known as Four Tet, a few years back. The duo has released a number of discs, but in 2005, both were joined by Reid’s proper jazz group as well as some other Brit players to record Spirit Walk.

The disc wasn’t unrelated to the Reid and Hebden workouts in the past, but a cursory listen to a few tracks could lead one to believe that the disc was recorded during the ‘70s on some small run label.

The lead off track, “Lugano,” could have been some downtown loft session. But it’s not. And only on the album’s third track, “Bridget,” does Hebden’s electronic gadgetry become so pervasive as to hint at the disc’s recording date. It’s pretty much all highlights from then on out. And even as the disc might move into territory that seems like musicians getting muscular for no reason other than being muscular, there’s merit in all of it. Some of Reid’s work from the ‘70s might present itself as a logical entrance point into his career, Spirit Walk is as good a place to start as any.