Album Review: Glenn Frey - After Hours

So what kind of album would one of the founding members of The Eagles record 20 years after his last solo album? Well, don't expect a The Heat Is On revisited. The piano-based After Hours certainly isn't what anyone still interested in Glenn Frey would have expected, though I suppose the title might have provided a hint. Here is as smooth and laid-back a collection of cocktail hour Great American Songbook jazz standards – though for the most part not the obvious ones – that would do Michael Bublé proud.

That's not meant to be backhanded compliment either. Why shouldn't Frey pour his musical heart out through a collection of beautifully composed and superbly arranged songs performed with all the subtle understatement that they deserve? No one's forcing you to buy or listen to it, but I have to say, it's a very gentle and comfortable little journey he'll take you on, if you care to join him. The best known of the songs he's chosen to reinterpret, just because he obviously love these wonderful, wonderful songs, are The Shadow Of Your Smile and The Look Of Love, while a very tame Route 66 is as “uptempo” as he gets.

But that's fine really; Frey is obviously in a sentimental frame of mind and with that clean, clear reed-like voice of his, it all makes perfect sense. You're probably thinking, if you've even read this far, that here's at best a Christmas CD for your grandparents. But for those songwriters who've got this far, there's a lot to learn from a collection like this. Of course, there are plenty of other and finer singers mining this catalogue, but if you know nothing about it, After Hours is as good a place as any to dip your toes.