Club shows by cult free jazz drummer Steve Reid have now been confirmed just as a rare session from the 1970s is set to come back into circulation. The much sought after Mustevic album Odyssey Of The Oblong Square Reid recorded at the height of the way-out loft jazz scene movement is to be reissued on the London-based Soul Jazz label.

The session with alto saxophonists Charles Tyler and Arthur Blythe, trumpeter Ahmed Abdullah, bassist David Wertman and percussion Mohommad Abdallah is says Steve “completely free, with no rehearsal – just freedom.” The other highly collectable albums from the period, Rhythmatism and Nova, both already reissued by Soul Jazz differ in their basic conception, he says, from Odyssey.

In recent years Reid has enjoyed a renaissance working with electronics artist Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet and the pair will hook up once again at a festival later this year in Switzerland where Steve now lives. New Yorker Reid in the 1960s was a pioneer in working with African musicians in Africa. Fast forward to 2007, with Hebden, Reid’s album Daxaar recorded in Senegal picked up on the stream of music Reid has immersed himself in over recent years taking his 60s African researches forward into the 21st century and merging authentic African sounds with post-war American black music and the new wave of electronica.

Earlier this year Reid played at Ornette Coleman’s Meltdown and will release brand new album In The Rhythms next year on Soul Jazz. He recorded it earlier this year in New York.

– Stephen Graham

The Borderline shows in London's Soho are on 10 and 11 November. To book phone 0844 847 2465.