Saunders Sermons - Just What She Needs (2013)

Share this article
    Saunders Sermons
    Saunders Sermon Just What She Needs.jpg
    Click on CD cover
    to listen or purchase

    Perhaps best known as Maxwell and Roy Hargrove’s trombonist, in 2009 Saunders Sermons arrived on the scene as the Michael Franks for the millennial generation. Delivering what was easily one of the most inspired projects of that year, Classic Delights, Sermons had established a high benchmark for himself. Updating his sound in funkier, more masculine ways, the two-time Grammy-winner more than meets that watershed moment in his young career, bucking at doubters a little bit and daring fans to love him more. Here is a gutsier Sermons.

    Perhaps best known as Maxwell and Roy Hargrove’s trombonist, in 2009 Saunders Sermons arrived on the scene as the Michael Franks for the millennial generation. Delivering what was easily one of the most inspired projects of that year, Classic Delights, Sermons had established a high benchmark for himself. Updating his sound in funkier, more masculine ways, the two-time Grammy-winner more than meets that watershed moment in his young career, bucking at doubters a little bit and daring fans to love him more. Here is a gutsier Sermons.

    Whereas Classic Delight was clearly navigating the tightrope between purist jazz and the kind of late ‘70s, early ‘80s light R&B that made Boz Scaggs, Bobby Caldwell and Michael Franks beloveds of the sophisticate set, Just What She Needs is far less reverential of a period and far more bold in its willingness to strike out as its own modern creation. Stepping to indie peers like PJ Morton and Jon Bibbs and elder statesmen like Raphael Saadiq, Saunders Sermons successfully transitions his jazz training to a more electronic influenced environment without losing the vulnerability at the core of his soulful voice. It’s a difficult sleight of hand, one that greats like Bill Withers and Earth Wind and Fire did but weren’t able to pull off quite as ably during their ‘80s runs. Saunders takes so many risks on this project when compared to his introductory neo-classic project, and most of them pay off...not all, but most.

    There is a straight five-song homerun of back-to-back exceptional material, before we hit the brickwall that is the ill-conceived “Predictor.” Starting with “Something New,” Sermons channels his inner Saadiq on the hip, fedora-tilting strut of “…New’s” syncopated juke joint with peppery horns and a bassline so nasty it sizzles like hot chicken grease. The game-show-theme frolics of the horn chart on the duet “You Got a Hold On Me” is as fun as a quarter arcade on a summer day, and the vocal chemistry between Yahzarah (doing her best Minnie Riperton) and Sermons a tickle to the ears. From airy romance, with “Love Hurts” Sermons enters Jamie Foxx territory and plunges us into an electrosoul blues of a decidedly futuristic nature, with Sermons vocally pushing himself out of his comfort zone on a lyric that’s all pain, a creative gamble that delivers dividends.

    Sermons is on considerably safer but still intriguing footing when he carries the spirit of Marvin Gaye’s I Want You album to ride or die over cinematic rhythms on “I Want You (featuring Maurice “Mobetta” Brown)." While Brown is no Method Man, the drama infused production of “I Want You” has all the pure fire hip hop swagger of a RZA arrangement for Wu Tang. “Stop The Rain” sidesteps radio anthem clichés by the incorporation of Sermons well-placed and well-performed trombones and a decently catchy hook, offering the overproduced synthesized landscapes some musical graces. Still, one admires the downtown hazards undertaken on “Stop the Rain” given Sermons uptown musical pedigree.

    “Predictor” cannot generously be said to have survived equally unscathed. Despite sound verses, from the grating vocoder hook to the overwrought auto-tuned production, the moment is unworthy of this album and this artist. It’s residue cannot be easily shaken by the time we finally crossover, dying again of musical thirst, to the surer sands of “Just What She Needs.” This love letter is as heartfelt as they come, but is written for a vocal beyond even Sermons’ considerable gifts. His sincerity rings past the vocal strain and not entirely tuneful notes that are all too evident by the big moments of a cut definitely cover worthy by a more dexterous instrument than Sermons. 

    Blessedly, “When I Get That Feeling” restores Sermons credentials and resumes the Marvin Gaye love fest with echoes of “Sexual Healing” playing just beneath the jam’s chorus. His voice is again in fine form on a piano ballad version of a standout album cut from Classic Delights, “Don’t You Understand” is everything Sermons' fans loved about his debut: honest, clean, emotionally transparent and understated but moving. The mournful beauty of Sermons lyrics shows up gorgeously here, tapping the soul. 

    The live studio recording of “Don’t You Understand” could have closed the set and none would’ve been the wiser, but with “Sample of Your Love” Sermons slides in one more mid-tempo head-bumper, just in case industry folks were sleeping on his radio-ready Urban Adult Contemporary game. The cut would be a mid-day homerun on any UAC station’s afternoon drive. And, with this final professional touch, Sermons proves himself an all-around recording artist and not just an award-winning side musician who can arrange and sing for bigger named artists, from Jay-Z to The Tedeschi Trucks Band. With well-deserved indie street cred, mainstream pounds and a penchant for the catchy and the commercial, on Just What She Needs, Saunders Sermons boldly shows innovation-seeking soul fans he may be just what they’ve been needing too. Highly Recommended.     

    By L. Michael Gipson