awarded it five stars. In that same edition of DownBeat, tenor saxophonist Harold Land was played the track, "To Artist Murry DePillars", in a Blindfold Test. Upon hearing the track, he commented: "I think that he's a very good saxophonist... I have great respect for his technique and his control of the instrument." Four months later, however, the magazine published a second Blindfold Test, this time with saxophonist Phil Woods, in which Woods, after listening to the same track, stated: "That was terrible, I can't imagine the ego of a person thinking they can sustain a whole performance by themselves... It's not jazzy, it's not classical... it's dull... this is such an ego trip..." Recent reactions have been positive, and the album is now recognized as one of the landmarks of free jazz and improvised music. The AllMusic review by Thom Jurek stated: "For Alto is one of the greatest solo saxophone records ever made, and maybe one of the greatest recordings ever issued, period". The Penguin Guide to Jazz gives For Alto a four-star rating (of a possible four) along with its "crown" token of merit, and describes it as "one of the genuinely important American recordings. While some landmark performances retain only a mystical aura of their original significance, [For Alto] remains powerfully listenable and endlessly fascinating." On All About Jazz Derek Taylor observed "This is a recording and artistic statement that completely changed the rules. Braxton's gall seemed audacious to some, but revolutionary to far more and the hindsight of history has proven this latter camp correct. His opened the gates for solo improvisatory expression for all players up to the challenge to pass through and in the intervening years many of the giants of improvised music have followed suit". Author Tom Moon included the album in his book 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, writing: "For Alto is dizzying and maddening, dense and challenging, inventive and offputting. It's also among a handful of great solo saxophone recordings in jazz, alongside the unaccompanied tunes on Eric Dolphy's Far Cry. The sheer amount of music here is overwhelming... For Alto is a riveting blast of fresh air, radically adventurous early gems from one of the most important thinkers in jazz." In an article for Jazzwise, Kevin Le Gendre stated: "Braxton's alto saxophone is like the sound of acid dripped from the beating wings of hummingbirds, a charmingly