The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide states that "Apogee is an unadulterated burner, guaranteed to work for tenor freaks."[3]
The AllMusic review noted: "Apogee is an anomaly in many ways. First, it is a Southern California answer to the great titan tenor battle records of the '40s and '50s. Rather than sounding like a cutting contest, it sounds like a gorgeous exercise in swinging harmony and melodic improvisation by two compadres. ... the pair engaged a kind of freewheeling, good-time set that remains one of the most harmonically sophisticated recordings to come out of the 1970s."[4] On All About Jazz, Chris M. Slawecki observed: "It is impossible to distinguish one man’s tenor from the other: sometimes they swing in unison, sometimes harmonizing, sometimes in duet or counterpunching, but they are always strong, meaty and powerful."[7] In Jazz Review, Mark Keresman called it "a sterling set of beautifully recorded, searing, straight-ahead, mainstream bop tenor madness."[5]
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