Arbour Zena

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[3]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz	[4]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide	[5]
Tom Hull	B−[6]

Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Richard S. Ginell awarded the album 3 stars and said, "although this music can be attractive in small doses, the lack of tempo or texture contrasts over long stretches of time—particularly the nearly 28-minute "Mirrors"—can be annoying if you're not in the right blissful mood."^[2]

Reviewing the album for the website All About Jazz, John Kelman said:

Jarrett had already released music more aligned with the classical sphere on 1974's In the Light, which contained works for string quartet and brass quintet, a fughata for harpsichord and more; but it was with Arbour Zena—reuniting the pianist with the string section Stuttgart's Südfunk Symphony Orchestra and conductor Mladen Gutesha (who'd performed In the Light's "Metamorphosis")—that Jarrett found the magic nexus between composition and improvisation, both through his own contributions on piano and with the participation of Haden and saxophonist Jan Garbarek, also making the record an even broader marriage of his European and American concerns.^[7]