With his supple voice, wide-ranging taste, and especially his willingness to embrace and incorporate synthetic sounds, Ghanaian star Pat Thomas was a key voice in modernizing the highlife genre as the ‘70s turned into the ‘80s and ‘90s. Continuing to record and perform sporadically in the intervening years, his reemergence on the world stage backed by all-star collective the Kwashibu Area Band for a self-titled album (Strut Records) is a reminder of how powerful that voice is and a refresher course in the beauty of his songwriting.

Kwabishu Area’s bandleaders, Kwame Yeboah (nephew of A.K. Yeboah), principally a keyboardist but also contributing guitar and drums throughout, and saxophonist Ben Arbarbanel-Wolff, assembled a righteous inter-generational cast of players and have used the colors of that band to create fresh reinterpretations of some of Thomas’ biggest hits as well as new compositions that stand proudly amongst those classics. One of their finest strokes was reuniting Thomas with one of the other giants of modern highlife, Ebo Taylor, who was also enlisted for horn charts, as well as Afrobeat legend Tony Allen on three tracks.

Those three voices form the bedrock of the hardest driving tracks on the record. Taylor’s horns are at the heart of some of the most impassioned performances here, particularly his contribution to “Odo Adaada,” which has an airy quality that almost recalls salsa dancing through a gorgeous, cheerful interplay between Thomas and his daughter Nanaaya on vocals. That intensity is matched on the raging “Ama Ehu,” with its showcase for Yeboah’s keys playing with both a studied 1980s plastic synth sound, but layering deep bass tones under it for shading. The cut is led by full-throated horns at the front of the charge followed by a call-and-response between Thomas and his backing vocalists, recalling the give and take of Ray Charles and the Raelettes or James Brown and the Famous Flames.

The easy give and take of these three old friends and collaborators forms the backbone of this record, but there’s a bounty of riches from the rest of Thomas’ band. “Me Ho Asem” is a blistering dancefloor burner, with a crackling, incendiary trumpet solo (courtesy of legend Osei Tutu) near its midpoint, and a cymbal-heavy proto-breakbeat drum part courtesy of Yeboah and “Sunny” Owusu. “Oye Asem” opens with a spiky guitar line and waves of horns over a lush orchestra of percussion and Yeboah’s keys before Thomas’ supple voice comes in. The sun-dappled “Gyae Su” epitomizes the spacious, relaxed swing that defines this record, with thickets of chiming guitar and dense percussion as the vocals tease the beat in an unhurried way that emphasizes the catchiness of the hook.

Pat Thomas & Kwashibu Area Band is a reminder of the vitality and life in highlife music and a benchmark for what all organic dance music can be. It is a record filled to the brim with irrepressible charm, style, and passion that would be the envy of singers half Thomas’ age, musicianship that epitomizes what being at the top of one’s game with nothing to prove is like, and timeless songs.