Writing for All About Jazz, John Kelman called the album "a truly deep recording that makes Walcott's death in a car accident while on tour with Oregon... all the more tragic", and noted that Walcott was "truly one of the earliest musicians to explore the integration of music from other cultures into an improvised jazz setting."[5]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings states, "The quartet format ... inevitably anticipates Walcott's and Cherry's work with Codona, and the long 'Song of the Morrow' is a perfect encapsulation of the group's idiom."[4]
In an post on ECM blog Between Sound and Space, Tyran Grillo wrote: "Grazing Dreams is structured as long-form whole in which individual tracks blend into the overarching power that binds them," and commented: "The engineering of this album is ahead of its time. Considering the way each track evolves, an attuned sensibility was clearly required to bring out the music's full breadth. Case in point: the way the buzzing solitude that opens 'Gold Sun' gradually develops into a honeyed elaboration of sitar and bass is nothing short of astonishing. Each tune is spun from the same cloth, dyed in real time with the languid syncopation of improvisers who feel what they hear. Gentility through strength is the backbone of Grazing Dreams, a poignant and timeless statement spun from the ether of dreams."[6]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Collin Walcott except as indicated
