In his book, This is Hip: The Life of Mark Murphy, author Peter Jones writes that "Death haunts the entire album".

I never met Jack, and I never expected I’d become a Kerouacian, but I am one of the lucky people still alive who did see Lord Buckley perform...What really turned me on about this guy [Kerouac] was that he wrote like an improvising musician...I really connected to him".

[1] There were also technical problems getting a successful take on Murphy's spoken word "San Francisco Ride" reading from Kerouac over bass and drum accompaniment.

[1] Unable to afford a string section, Bill Mays used a synthesizer to achieve the sound Murphy wanted in the final ballad medley, as well as in "Blood Count", "Eddie Jefferson", and "Lazy Afternoon".

[1][10][11][12][7][8][13][9] Published reviews and discussions include the following: In his book, A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers, author Will Friedwald says that the recording is "a worthy sequel" to Bop for Kerouac, "Murphy's most successful concept album"[10] and finds the two sets "constitute a moving meditation" on literary and musical beatnikism.

[10] But he calls the very highest points the Kerouac recitations, and "For supremely hip comedy, Murphy has memorized the most famous monologue by the greatest of all beat comics, the legendary Richard "Lord" Buckley, which translates Marc Antony's funeral oration from Julius Caesar into hep-cat lingo".

[10] The AllMusic entry written by Sott Yanow gives the album 4.5 stars saying, "It is Mark Murphy's narratives that make this set most unique and memorable".

[6] Yanow also includes the album in his list of best individual Muse sets by Mark Murphy in his book The Jazz Singers: The Ultimate Guide.

[11] The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music rates the release as good (3/5, meaning by the artist's usual standards and therefore recommended).

[12] The Penguin Guide to Jazz assigns 3 stars (meaning a good if middleweight set; one that lacks the stature or consistency of the finest records, but which is certainly rewarding on its own terms).

[13] He says of "Blood Count", "What makes Murphy's interpretation so unforgettable is his way of seizing, bending, and shaping the notes into haunting, shadowy forms".

[13] He calls the performances "rousing", "memorable", and says, "Torch songs don't come any better than these...When the tumult subsides, as it eventually must, Murphy will be considered one of the major artists of our age".

[13] Fred Bouchard, writing in DownBeat magazine in 1990, calls Murphy "restless, brilliant, irreverent, fun"[9] playing "fast and loose with the easy beat (read: bop) spirit that Kerouac personified".

[9] He gives the album a 4.5 star rating, singling out the reading of Kerouac's mad cap car ride from Big Sur, and the Lord Buckley parody of Mark Antony's eulogy from Julius Caesar.

Some of Murphy's best moments, however, come when the mood and tempo downshifts for the wry, conversational lyric Ben Sidran composed for Thelonious Monk's "Ask Me Now," or for the restless, rain-soaked version of "Lazy Afternoon," or for Billy Strayhorn's gorgeous "Blood Count."