In Todd R. Decker's 2014 book "Who Should Sing Ol' Man River?: The Lives of an American Song", Decker wrote that the album cover of "Brubeck à la mode" shows the "...smiling quartet sharing ice cream sodas at a picture-perfect ice cream fountain". Decker wrote how the cover frames the album within the context of the contemporaneous Civil Rights Movement; especially the Greensboro sit-ins and Nashville sit-ins which also took place at lunch counters.