Kohsuke Mine Quartet - Solid

East Wind Masters Collection

Solid is right -- as the album's one of the best-ever from Japanese saxophonist Kosuke Mine -- a really far-reaching quartet session with a wonderfully vibrant feel. One of the real strengths of the session is its keyboard work by Mikio Masuda -- warm and soulful, a perfect platform for the more exploratory passages that Mine lays down on soprano and tenor sax -- with that sharp, soulful, almost spiritual quality that makes him one of our favorite Japanese musicians from the 70s.

with Hideaki Mochizuki on bass and Arihide Kurata on drums