What’s in a name, anyway? My CD lists him as Kohsuke Mine, but Apple Music lists him as Kousuke Mine. Oh, and Wikipedia lists him as Kosuke Mine, dropping the first “u” and complicating things even further. Maybe it doesn’t matter (maybe absolutely nothing matters, as I sit here typing this at 5am the morning after the presidential election, numb and devastated – you do you, though), because in the end it’s the music that matters, and I was surprised over the last few days that Sunshower, the saxophonist’s 1976 funk-driven fusion went from a light diversion to a quick favorite.

Starting as a bandleader in 170 at the ripe jazz age of 24, Mine kicked off with a few albums at the independent Three Blind Mice before making the move over to East Wind Records. His discography as a leader is pretty light, and Sunshower comes toward the tail end of his career, his penultimate release for East Wind before nothing for almost 20 years. That’s a shame, because listening to the breezy fun funk of opener “We Got Our Dance” the first I notice is his generosity. Mine is there, of course, and I love his cocked wah tone, but a lot of the track is collaborative, with the keyboards from Mikio Masada (who wrote the track) and electric guitar from Hiroshi Yasukawa carrying much of the foreground.

It’s a super fun track, plenty bounce but where things got interesting for me was “I Know Where You Come From” which is a stellar showcase for guitarist Hiroshi Yasukawa. With its opening tentative keyboards and dirge tempo from Arihide Kurarta’s drums, Yasukawa comes in with a plaintive wail on his guitar, and I was immediately taken to Eddie Hazel. Quoting one of Funkadelic’s most famous numbers was not where I expecting to go on a Japanese jazz release, but there you are. Mine takes the next solo and things become much more traditional but – for those two and half minutes – I was transported to the sound of one of my formative funk heroes.

The title track returns to the happy, slinky funk of the opener, and again Yasukawa leads with that guitar. I know I’m a sucker for guitar work, but I honestly was coming to these releases with the impression it would lean much more on horns and keyboards. To hear Mine hand the reins over to his sidemen makes these tracks even more enjoyable, each section adding a new surprise. If anything I might like “Sunshower” more than “We Got Our Dance”. Sunshower as an album ends with “Expectation” and you could call it the ballad of the album, except that melodically there are all these little nods to Zappa that I find fascinating, especially toward the end of the track. This was surprising album for me, something I’m probably going to return to a lot as I process the hurt and pain and figure out how survive the next four years.

I’m probably going to need music more than ever.