[3] Newsday called Lenox Avenue Breakdown "urbane, lucid jazz played with an animated spirit.

'[8] The Buffalo News deemed it a "blistering, eminently approachable set from a top level band.

"[9] The Penguin Guide to Jazz included Lenox Avenue Breakdown in its "Core Collection," and assigned its "crown" accolade to the album, along with a four-star rating (of a possible four stars).

[5] Penguin editors Richard Cook and Brian Morton called the album "one of the lost masterpieces of modern jazz," owing to its long period of unavailability before the 1998 CD release.

"[5] Thom Jurek, writing for AllMusic, notes that "this group lays like a band that had been together for years, not the weeklong period it took them to rehearse and create one of Blythe's masterpieces.