The neo-soul crowd suffers from the Wynton Marsalis problem: They're better appreciators than they are creators. All those years of carrying on about how great the music used to be has kept Marvin on malt liquor posters, but it's done jack shit to help the young lions shift units. At first, Leela James seems in this bag -- her disc cover apes Roberta Flack, the title's Sam Cooke, the first song's another essay on how much better things were way back when. But like Posdnous, she's less interested in back-in-the-day than she is in front-of-the-night. From track three on, A Change is vital art instead of a museum piece. Big beats hit the just-there zone between 1975 and hip-hop, and James' voice has a distinctive, growly husk, suited to blues, gospel, pop or the deep confluence of all three. Vocal showboating is never the point. The bangers bang, but the highlights are a couple of slow-burners based on vamps as simple and raw as anything off Live at the Apollo. Even Wyclef's showing up doesn't hurt. It's been too long since a debut soul record stirred such an immediate emotional response.
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