Into the Hot is an album released under the auspices of Gil Evans featuring a large ensemble under the direction of John Carisi and the Cecil Taylor Unit.

Composer/trumpeter John Carisi's three tracks are performed by an orchestra drawn from the top ranks of New York jazz and studio musicians and features solos by Phil Woods.

The Cecil Taylor recordings from this album were also released on Mixed in 1998, along with tracks by Roswell Rudd's sextet, as well as on The Dedication Series Vol.

"[5] In a review for AllMusic, Scott Yanow described Carisi's contributions to the album as "disappointingly forgettable", but called Taylor's music "quite adventurous and exciting, the main reason to acquire this somewhat misleading set.

"[2] Mark Corroto, writing for All About Jazz, commented: "Evans' release introduced many listeners to Taylor and the revolutionary artists Jimmy Lyons, Archie Shepp, Roswell Rudd, Henry Grimes, and Sunny Murray.

Lyons and Shepp's saxophones address the growing storm whipped up by Ornette Coleman while the pulse of the music threatens to tear itself away from the bebop revolution.

"[9] Pierre Giroux, writing for MusicWeb International, remarked: "John Carisi... was a self-taught trumpeter of little note, with one exception.

He penned the composition 'Israel' which Miles Davis recorded as part of his Birth Of The Cool album and also for which Bill Evans had a particular affinity.

None of Carisi's compositions written for this session... come even remotely close to the quality of that previously mentioned piece, even though he tries to emulate some of the touches and flourishes that Evans produced with such luminescent ease.

"[10] In a review for Jazz History Online, Amy Duncan wrote: "Following his 1961 big band masterpiece, Out of the Cool, one might expect Gil Evans' next album to be a further development of the same theme, but that's not what happened.