The album was praised in the original LP sleeve-notes by jazz critic Nat Hentoff: "There is Sarah's striking sense of design.

The basic framework of each song is carefully structured and personalised, and that makes her frequently stunning improvisations ... all the more absorbing.

Hers is so resonant and rich a sound you feel you can almost touch it ... in sum a nonpareil illustration of a master singer at the peak of her expressive energies."

The review described Vaughan's performance of "Wave" as "a soft, delicate experience in which the scales the vocal spectrum.

"[5] In his 2003 book Jazz on Record: The First Sixty Years, critic Scott Yanow described Live in Japan as featuring Vaughan at the "height of her powers" and wrote that "Sassy's voice is often heard in miraculous form on this set.