Despite remaining outside the purview of the mainstream jazz community,
On the Corner has undergone a positive critical reassessment in subsequent decades; according to Tingen, many critics outside jazz have characterized it as "a visionary musical statement that was way ahead of its time".
Fact characterized the album as "a frenetic and punky record, radical in its use of studio technology," adding that "the debt that the modern dance floor owes the pounding abstractions of
On the Corner has yet to be fully understood." Writing for
The Vinyl Factory, Anton Spice described it as "the great great grandfather of hip-hop,
IDM,
jungle,
post-rock and other styles drawing meaning from repetition."
On the Corner was featured on the 2007 box set
The Complete On the Corner Sessions, alongside tracks from Davis' subsequent compilation albums
Big Fun and
Get Up with It and previously unreleased recordings from the same period. Reviewing the box set in
The Wire, critic
Mark Fisher wrote that "[t]he passing of time often neutralises and naturalises sounds that were once experimental, but retrospection has not made
On the Corners febrile, bilious stew any easier to digest."
Stylus Magazines Chris Smith wrote that the record anticipated musical principles that abandoned a focus on a single soloist in favor of collective playing: "At times harshly minimal, at others expansive and dense, it upset quite a few people. You could call it
punk."
On the Corner was cited by
SF Weekly as prefiguring subsequent funk, jazz,
post-punk, electronica, and hip hop. According to
AllMusic's Thom Jurek, "the music on the album itself influenced – either positively or negatively – every single thing that came after it in jazz, rock, soul, funk, hip-hop, electronic and
dance music,
ambient music, and even popular
world music, directly or indirectly."
BBC Music reviewer Chris Jones expressed the view that the music and production techniques of
On the Corner "prefigured and in some cases gave birth to
nu jazz,
jazz-funk,
experimental jazz, ambient and even world music."
Pitchfork described the album as "longing, passion and rage milked from the primal source and heading into the dark beyond."
Fact named
On the Corner the 11th best album of the 1970s,
John F. Szwed also wrote of the album in
The Wire: Despite the record's influence on numerous artists outside of jazz, "the mainstream jazz community still won't touch
On the Corner with a barge pole", according to Tingen, "and whatever remains of jazz-rock continues to be too deeply in thrall of the pyrotechnics aspect of such 1970s bands as
Mahavishnu Orchestra to take any notice of
On the Corners repetitive funk, which was the antithesis of virtuosity." and music essayist
Simon Reynolds as exemplary of the trumpeter's jazz-rock music, and
Mick Wall viewed it as a "jazz-rock cornerstone". According to
NPR Music's Felix Contreras,
On the Corner was among several albums from 1972 that "blurred the lines between rock and jazz", along with
I Sing the Body Electric by
Weather Report and
Santana's
Caravanserai. Jazz scholar Paul Lopes cited the album as an example of
jazz-funk, and ethnomusicologist
Rob Bowman called it "a milestone" in the genre, while
Barry Miles believed it was a jazz-funk album that also "qualifies as
prog rock because no one at the time knew what to call it."
Pat Thomas from
Juxtapoz magazine wrote in retrospect that the record explored
psychedelic funk.
On the Corner was also viewed by Dave Segal of
The Stranger as a "landmark fusion album" While noting its inclusiveness and transcendence of a variety of musical genres,
Howard Mandel regarded the album as both jazz and avant-garde music, while Stubbs said "this riff beast is a hybrid of funk and rock but is more atavistic, more avant garde than anything conventionally dreamt of by either genre". ==Track listing==