Delayed Plays: Things Are Getting Better by Jimetta Rose & Voices of Creation

Time, like life, sometimes unspools as if a cassette stuck in a deck with a malfunctioning motor. While the tape bunches and scrunches, its electromagnetic sounds stretch into a slow belch one moment before squealing the next. Days beget weeks beget months until, early this morning, I woke to the realization that summer’s near over. I planned to write about Things Are Getting Better on a Sunday closer to its release in early June, in other words, and to expound on how it’s secular gospel at its best and sure to boost one’s mood and spirit. But time got away from me.

For those unfamiliar with Rose and company: She’s a former Pentecostal youth choir director long active in the Los Angeles music scene, while Voices of Creation is a multigenerational choir she formed in hopes of fulfilling her vision of community and togetherness. She recruited the members not just on the strength of their voices but “on their interest in healing themselves and others.” How Good It Is, their first outing, was released in 2022 and was (and remains) a joyful blend of gospel, jazz and soul.

This, their sophomore effort, is as grand. “Portals,” the rapturous opener, starts the service the best possible way, with the collective supporting Rose’s sermon, “Every morning when I wake up, I’m grateful for the day/another chance to breathe a breath….” “To Each a Zone,” on the other hand, essentially predicted the rise of Tim Walz: “The time has come for everyone to mind their own business. Not my business, your business. Mind the business that pays you,” she preaches, with the VOC choir singing, “Focus on yourself, mind your business, do your thing.” They further expound: “To each their own, that’s my philosophy/I don’t know what’s bad for you/you don’t know what’s right for me.”

“Surrender the Day” expounds upon that philosophy, embracing the strength that’s found in belief—even when it’s difficult: “My faith cannot be built on things that fade away/I bring the joy and let the pain teach me to be strong/got to expect great things to come my way.” Kam Stewart, who sings lead, sounds like a young Stevie Wonder.

The a cappella “Miracle,” on the other hand, showcases the choir’s multidimensional talent, while “Everyday Blessings celebrates the good fortune that’s promised by each new day. The jazzy title track, meanwhile, could well be the theme song for 2024, which has seen most days better than the ones before. “Already Real to Me,” for its part, blends the spoken word with song. It’s easy to dismiss that which we cannot see, be it a higher power or even the love and friendship showered on us by others. Some may have ulterior motives, for sure, but many more don’t. As “Everywhere I Look (Love Is Everywhere)” asserts, good can be found wherever one looks. Turmoil, tumult, war and senseless deaths have been with us since the dawn of time, after all, but so has grace and goodwill.

In short, Things Are Getting Better provides songs in the key of love. The many voices come together as one yet allow space for each to bloom. It’s a perfect soundtrack for a Sunday—or any day, for that matter. The proverbial tape plays without a hitch.