Reviewing the album for "Pitchfork", Drew Daniel praised "20 Jazz Funk Greats" as Throbbing Gristle's peak, writing that "it's in the pathos of their promiscuous liasions with the forbidden territory of various forms of 'real music' that this album generates a weirdly gripping power of its own." He continued, ""20 Jazz Funk Greats" finds the band waking up from ""'s dark night of the soul and feeling curiously frisky. Snacking on not only the titular funk and jazz, the band also takes touristic zig zags through exotica, rock and disco", ultimately describing it as a "kitsch detour toward mutant disco". AllMusic writer Paul Simpson wrote, "Thoroughly exciting and immeasurably influential, "20 Jazz Funk Greats" is easily Throbbing Gristle's crowning achievement, and one of the highlights of the post-punk era." In a retrospective review of Throbbing Gristle's discography for "Uncut", Michael Bonner stated that "Musically, it turned away from the precipice; not exactly jazz and funk, but sublimating TG’s noise elements within electronic rhythms and proto-exotica. Album highlight "Hot on the Heels of Love" is convincingly Moroder-esque disco, Cosey breathing sweet nothings amid bubbling synthesisers and whip-crack snare. Elsewhere, P-Orridge mines a lyrical seam of control and domination." "Dusted Magazine" described the album as "a deliberate attempt to toy with the ideas behind marketing strategy and the purpose of musical genres."