The very first record released on Three Blind Mice, a debut for both label and bandleader. Recorded in Tokyo in August 1970, Mine announces the saxophonist Kosuke Mine and sets out, in advance, the editorial stance the label would hold for the next two decades: serious post-bop with European clarity, Coltrane-era heat, and a particularly Japanese sense of restraint that lets the most intense solos hold their shape. Mine's quintet pairs his alto and soprano with trombone, the great Hideo Ichikawa on Fender Rhodes, bass and drums. The electric piano gives the harmony a smoky cast that's unusual for the moment, while the trombone-saxophone front line carries the weight of the writing. By the early seventies a generation of Japanese players had absorbed the free and modal innovations of late-sixties American jazz; Mine is among the first to cut a record that could stand on the same shelf. The cornerstone document of one of the great independent jazz labels of the era, and a record whose reputation has only grown across the decades. Reissued as part of the Three Blind Mice Supreme Collection 1500, the programme overseen by Koki Hanawa for Craftman Records.