Ben Watson (HiFi News) said "this modest set has its own scratchy charm." Fred Kaplan (FI) called it "Bang's finest recording in a decade." Counter to that, David Kuner wrote in Cadence "if there are any pleasures here, they derive mainly from hearing Denis Charles play well (albeit in a somewhat conservative and unchallenging setting" and Parry Gettelman (Orlando Sentinel) wrote that Billy Bang "shows that a sense of adventure and a sense of romance needn't be musically exclusive.