[5] Intended as a Christmas present for Heckman and composer George Russell, D.J.-ology exemplified Brooks' longtime interest in "the possibilities of using the tape recorder as a musical instrument."
[5] Ford credits Gabler for finding the majority of the records's samples, sequencing most of its parts, writing lyrics for five of its six original songs and conceiving the "quick lines and snatches of dialogue read by actors" that also appear.
"[5] Author David Toop describes it as a "disrupted, haphazard narrative" in which the "intense angularity" of the trio's live playing is "intercut with recordings of comedy routines, poetry, piano solos and songs performed by singers such as Judy Scott, Lightnin' Hopkins, The Tarriers and Corrine.
[13] Ford describes it as "an assaultive mix of atonal jazz, Tin Pan Alley songs, poems, found sounds, and non sequitur lines read by ham actors".
[8] In Toop's description, the album's subject matter covers an array of late 1960s concerns, including "spaceflight, sexual liberation, the Vietnam war, racism and civil rights, identity and personal freedom".
[2] Gleason highlights the use of poetry from Lawrence Ferlinghetti and John Donne and snippets of voice which "sound like (and perhaps are) Lord Buckley, Everett Dirksen, Dean Martin, LBJ, George Wallace and others.
[5] In Ford's description, Brooks used Avant Slant to envision, represent and adapt to "the pop postmodernity that buried his native culture of Cold War modernism", and believed it to be "more way-out" than contemporary listeners could realize.
"[3] Critics and listeners who endorsed Brooks' experimental jazz work believed that the pop cultural nature of the album's D.J.-ology elements devalued The Twelves, including Gil Evans, who dismissed them as "entertainment".
"[11] Martin Wiliams of Saturday Review praised the Brooks ensemble's original performance, noting the humor, swing and conviction in their playing, but dismissed Avant Slant for intercutting portions of the concert with "stilted, unfunny verbal gaggery, sound effects, snippets of other music, quasi-poetry, 'mod' verbiage, and a few conventionally conceived pop tunes."
"[21] In their review, Cash Box commented that Avant Slant provides "a highly unusual listening experience" in which the four twelve-tone jazz improvisations are "broken up to allow space for 'ghost-voices' of contemporary figures, which reflect today's complex confusions.
[5] Paul Burgess of The Press of Atlantic City wrote that the album "seeks a rational whole out of irrational components" and compared it to the "surrealistic fur-lined tea cups" of Dadaism.
"[13] Similarly, David Atkinson of The Kansas City Star described it as a "montage of social comment and musical experimentation, but there are many elements of each which can be enjoyed, depending on the listener's point of view.
[22] The authors of The Essential Jazz Records Volume 2 (2000) highlight Brooks and Heckman's work in improvisation and composition, but believed that Avant Slant presented them "in an extremely unsatisfactory manor", due to how it mixes segments of their music with excerpts of pop, poetry and radio broadcasts "in ways that make it impossible to decide what they had achieved and whether there was a further potential."