Lenox Avenue Breakdown

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
Christgau's Record Guide	A[4]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz	👑[5]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide	[6]

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] Cook and Morton noted that "[Bob] Stewart's long tuba solo on the title-piece is one of the few genuinely important tuba statements in jazz, a nimble sermon that promises storms and sunshine."[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. Over 20 years later, Lenox Avenue Breakdown still sounds new and different and ranks among the three finest albums in his catalog."[3]

All compositions by Arthur Blythe.

Original LP side one

1. "Down San Diego Way" – 7:44
2. "Lenox Avenue Breakdown" – 13:11

Original LP side two

1. "Slidin' Through" – 9:33
2. "Odessa" – 9:30

• Arthur Blythe – alto saxophone, mixing
• James Newton – flute
• Bob Stewart – tuba
• James "Blood" Ulmer – guitar
• Cecil McBee – bass
• Jack DeJohnette – drums
• Guillermo Franco – percussion
• Bob Thiele – producer, mixing
• Doug Epstein – engineer, mixing
  • Carl Beatty and Lincoln Clapp – assistant engineers
• Vladimir Meller – mastering
• Gene Greif – design
• Mark Hess – illustration
• Jim Houghton – photography[7]
• Stanley Crouch – liner notes
• Donald Elfman – reissue producer
• Nicole Cavalluzzo – reissue design