Verve gets a lot of mileage out of its jazz catalog by repackaging a lot of material under loose thematic configurations.
After Hours, as you could probably guess from the title, focuses on
Simone's jazz ballads, with 16 tracks from her mid-'60s Philips albums. The material is pretty good--"Wild Is the Wind," "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair," "I Loves You Porgy," and Van McCoy's "For Myself" are all among her best sides from the period. But
Simone was an eclectic who could handle much more than jazzy ballads. Unless you know for sure that you prefer this facet of her work above all else, the more wide-ranging
Verve Jazz Masters 17 is a much better introduction to her mid-'60s work. The only (marginal) bonus of this collection is an unedited version of "Little Girl Blue." ~ Richie Unterberger