Producer Creed Taylor recalls the album's fifteen-minute-plus centerpiece: "La Nevada was not only original but was totally spontaneous. "Gil started noodling at the piano for a while, and he started this thing, and the rhythm section started doing something and then something sparked in Gil. The other pieces on OUT OF THE COOL were a little more arranged. But we didn't get any of them down until he got whatever it was on La Nevada' out of his system."
"When he is not concerned with the requirements of a specific soloist (and sometimes even when he is)," enthused John S. Wilson in the New York Times, speaking of Out of the Cool, "Mr. Evans can weave patterns of colors, rhythms and dynamics with an individuality of approach and sureness of touch that have been matched in jazz only by Duke Ellington."
