Marshall Crenshaw went from starring as John Lennon in the original Broadway production of Beatlemania to crafting his own tunes, including a particularly strong string of albums recorded for Warner Brothers in the mid 1980s. More recently, however, he thumbed his nose at the world of pop singers by writing music for the faux biopic Walk Hard.

Jen Chapin opens with a confident trio and a stable of slender jazz-pop tunes.