In 1970, Daniel Caux, a writer and painter associated with the Fluxus movement,[4] was asked by the Maeght Foundation to curate an art exhibition, the focus of which was the United States.

[7] The opportunity to perform in France gave Ayler a chance to step away from this situation, and to revisit the country where he had played while in the army, and where he had developed an appreciation for martial music.

Scott Yanow, writing for AllMusic, called the album "quite memorable," stating that the recordings represent Ayler "at the height of his powers" in a context in which he is able to "stretch out and 'preach' in his emotional and unique style".

[2] In a review for All About Jazz, Mark Corroto wrote: "The significance of this historical recording is not its revelation but in the rawness of its presentation... Ayler peels away the accessibility that was his Impulse!

"[18] Val Wilmer called the album "the declaration of an artist who has considered all the possibilities, and now offers this as a refined statement of his musical self", and noted that "many of the figures, themes and the feeling itself sprang directly, unadorned, from the Black church...

He draws on a huge reservoir of technique, digging deep into blues and gospel music and opening out to the roar of the cosmos... Ayler has rarely sounded so stately and - paradoxically - so at peace with himself... a lot of the material here feels as if he's finally come full circle, content to wrestle folk truths from the simplest of phrases, reducing the material to its most primal phonetics."

Ayler's saxophone mastery is at its apex, as he plays in every register of the horn with incredibly flexible tone, articulation, beautiful melodic ideas, and solo structure.

He still uses the hysteria he had developed on his 1965-66 recordings, but it takes its place alongside blues, tragic ballad, diatonic (march/hoedown), and Coltrane-like styles in his palette.