The AllMusic review by Stephen Cook states: "Having suffered the passing of longtime musical partner Jimmy Lyons just a year prior, pianist Cecil Taylor enlisted alto saxophonist and flute player Carlos Ward as a replacement for a series of European dates in 1987.

Filling out the group were percussionist Thurman Barker and violinist Leroy Jenkins (both veterans of Chicago's trailblazing AACM free jazz collective), as well as bassist William Parker.

The new group members proved to be up to Taylor's capricious and galvanizing ways on this Bologna concert recording, not only providing sympathetic support for the pianist's expansive explorations, but also creating uniquely improvised statements of their own...

Particularly on the second side, when Mr. Barker's marimba is partnered by soft flute and airy piano, along with what sounds like the happy chanting and chatting of an African ethnomusicological recording, an almost gentle Taylor begins to emerge... Not that he's lost his bite.

Still evident, especially in a group as attuned to itself as this one seems to be, is the delicate, fascinating, only dimly graspable way in which composition and improvisation interact; much of the interest of the music, in fact, lies in the very effort one is willing to make to perceive that mystery.