Non-rock examples of the so-called return to form record

The cliche of a musician's "return to form" has been discussed often enough on this board, including seemingly every thread for Dylan, Prince, McCartney, Costello, The Fall, REM, and Sonic Youth releases since ILM Year Zero and the following, among many others:

Best Album Since Blood On The Tracks
best album since the last best album since the really good ones
Albums that seemed rushed out to "atone" for a previous flop?
Are there any artist(s) who, many years after the quality of their work had dwindled or halted altogether, actually came back and released another significant album?
How long between great records before you can officially call it a comeback?

Today I'm wondering: has this cliche been applied to jazz musicians? Or country? Or blues? And if not, why not?

What non-rock records are widely considered a "return to form" after a long fallow period? I'm not thinking about disappearing acts who spend years in the woodshed then emerge with a big comeback: Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, etc. I'm talking about great musicians who lose the thread, put out a series of bad records, then pull something incredible out of the hat. (Man, how many different cliches for this are there, anyway?) Seeking examples, but also curious why this storyline would be so prominent in the pop/rock/indie world and less so elsewhere. Does "form" indicate something different in different genres?

Autechre - Quaristice

Solomon Burke, Bettye Lavette, Carla Thomas, Irma Thomas, Aretha Franklin, Candi Staton, Mavis Staples, Chaka Khan, Larry Graham, Tina Turner and Prince all have had this said about one or more of their post-hey day albums.

Johnny Cash, Inc.

I think it's been said a few times about Dolly Parton as well.

Mos Def's last album seemed to hinge on a "return to form" campaign

also Nas's Stillmatic

Muddy Waters - Hard Again

OK, thanks! So this shows up in plenty of genres. But what about jazz? That's the genre I was mostly trying to come up with an example for, and coming up blank..

Do Depeche Mode count as rock? Otherwise, "Playing The Angel".

Not otherwise, in which case, I mean.

Sonny Sharrock, "Ask the Ages"?

Duke Ellington had plenty of "comeback" records -- Newport is probably the biggest one. Not sure whether it was thought of as a "return to form" or just a career kickstarter.

Buddy Guy - Sweet Tea

And, Stevie Wonder?
"A Time To Love" was considered quite good, wasn't it?

Everly Bros -- Roots

David Axelrod : David Axelrod.

(the album that came out on mo wax in the 90s after many years lost in the wilderness, and the release of several albums that missed the target)

or does the fact a lot of it was actually based upon rediscovered 60s/70s recordings which were then added to, make it not count ?

Brian Wilson is arguably not particularly "rock". His 1988 solo debut was sort of a return to form. "sMiLe" even more so, although the latter was of course written during his artistic prime.

The jazz vocal equivalent of this is praising the artist for bringing a world-weary, experience-ravaged authority and/or near-death poignancy to his or her performance. See reviews of the last albums of Peggy Lee, Billie Holiday, Anita O’Day, Chris Conner and Frank Sinatra.

Albert Ayler fits the bill here. After his classic mid-60s sides which pretty much defined post-Coltrane free jazz he veered off into unappealing rock/R&B on New Grass and Music is the Healing Force of the Universe. While not a studio album, his last record was a live set recorded in France which saw him making a powerful return to the free jazz sound. Four months later he was dead.

kind of impressive that Miles Davis never made the cliche "return to form" studio record -- not a slight on his 80s material (some of it's quite good), but he never went back to his classic 50s acoustic sound. Maybe if he'd lived a little longer, he might have. or not! I guess he did that final concert with Quincy Jones or whatevs.

off the top of my head: The Emancipation of Mimi

ah good call

Sharrock's a good call, but the record to cite should be Guitar.

Frank Sinatra's Capitol albums may be considered his prime today. But when he released the first of those, "Songs For Young Lovers", in 1954, it was considered a huge return to form at the time.

The fourth of the linked threads in the first post namechecks The Bee Gees. Who did actually arguably return to form, not only with their mid 70s disco albums, but also with "One" in 1987.

Every Chemical Brothers album after Come With Us to thread.

Surely the ''return to form'' and ''transparent commercial comeback'' are somewhat blurred? I guess Santana doesn't fit the non-rock bill but I'm sure a lot of critics fawned rightly over Supernatural, whatever its merits. As long as they are ''back'' - Solomon Burke, Al Green with Willie Mitchell - and have some kind of contemporary presence it'll always be deemed a return to form no matter what.

So Modern Talking's commercial 1998-1999 comeback may be considered a "return to form" then? :)

unappealing rock/R&B

unappealing rock/R&B

― bamcquern, Monday, 22 March 2010 17:37 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

Is that a criticism of my Ayler post or what? Sorry but it's hard to tell.

Yes, but it's not a criticism of you personally.

I didn't take it as such. If you don't find New Grass and Music is the Healing Force of the Universe unappealing let's talk about it.

What about duran duran in the early 90s?

A commercial return to form maybe? "Astronaut" is probably an artistically much better album.

The Ayler one fits really well.

Sharrock's a good call, but the record to cite should be Guitar.

Is that a return to form, or the start of a whole different thing for him? The only earlier Sharrock I know is Monkey Pockie Boo, but it's so free/freakout compared to the more song-based Guitar. So I've seen Guitar as a return of form in the classic form/content sense, but not in the career arc sense I was thinking about here.

kind of impressive that Miles Davis never made the cliche "return to form" studio record -- not a slight on his 80s material (some of it's quite good), but he never went back to his classic 50s acoustic sound.

It was never the same river twice for Miles. On the other hand, Google turns up lots of references to Wayne Shorter pulling this trick (returning to 50's acoustic style) with Footprints Live and Alegria. Are those good?

i don't really agree with it at all, but jay-z's 'american gangster' was seen as a return to his gangster roots

The jazz vocal equivalent of this is praising the artist for bringing a world-weary, experience-ravaged authority and/or near-death poignancy to his or her performance. See reviews of the last albums of Peggy Lee, Billie Holiday, Anita O’Day, Chris Conner and Frank Sinatra.

Chet Baker too. To me, these are cases when the cliche is worth using, because it absolutely informs the way the critic and audience, and likely the performer, think of the record. In these cases it's hard to experience the record outside the story about the record, it's inescapably there, you've got to talk about it. The same trope bleeds into the last few Ray Charles records, and the last decade of Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan (OK, for him it's the last decade and counting): this could be the one that sums it all up, the final word looking back from death's doorstep. A lot of posthumous records come with a similar hype. It's as if once you're dead, anything you said about death when you were alive somehow becomes more authoritative. (Here I'm thinking of Zevon and Tupac.) Hasn't anyone made a verge of death comeback record that was just a bunch of throwaway ditties?

Mos Def's last album seemed to hinge on a "return to form" campaign

Must make an artist a bit queasy to have the label mount a "he's sucked lately, but ..." campaign.

hence LL's famous ""Don't call it a comeback / I've been here for years" on his comeback Mama Said Knock You Out. it's a pretty common trope in hip hop, from LL thru j0rdan's jay-z example to raekwon's cuban linx II. having trouble thinking of jazz examples.

Herbie Hancock has probably gotten some "return to form" play, since he's associated with so many different styles of jazz. Bill Evans probably got some after his electric piano doodling. Keith Jarrett certainly fits, too. Those are all pianists -- I dunno about horn players.

Jazz is fundamentally different from rock, and the "return to form" trope probably gets less used in jazz largely because its infrastructure of publicity works differently. What you'll often read in jazz writing is how a particular musician sounds "re-energized" (or some other similar word) in the presence of a new group of players, which is a little different.

>>Hasn't anyone made a verge of death comeback record that was just a bunch of throwaway ditties?

http://www.maggiore.net/greenacres/images/vicmizzy2.jpg

^ haha, return-to-form = get back in shape.

Herbie Hancock has probably gotten some "return to form" play, since he's associated with so many different styles of jazz.

Yeah, he did this after years of electric/funk jazz with the V.S.O.P. band (which was the classic 60s Miles quintet, with Miles replaced by Freddie Hubbard). I think it was even called "a return to form". Actually, I think a lot of jazz dudes who did fusion in the 70s returned back to (semi-)acoustic jazz in the 80s, when fusion fell out of vogue. Unfortunately this also spawned the narrow-minded anti-fusion movement lead by Wynton Marsalis, something Herbie most likely never intended to happen.

Merle Haggard - If I Could Only Fly was the first one that came to mind. And Porter Waggoner - Wagonmaster. (Hell, half the albums that Anti- Records has put out over the past few years, probably.)

"Solomon Burke, Bettye Lavette, Carla Thomas, Irma Thomas, Aretha Franklin, Candi Staton, Mavis Staples" OTM, too -- totally disagree that this is just a "rock" phenomenon. It's been an accepted marketing practice for once-great artists across the board ever since at least the '80s. (Gary U.S. Bonds' Dedication was 1981. And Lee Dorsey had Night People before that, in 1977. Though technically those are actually "rock" guys, I guess.)

And as a side issue, there's also dance-pop and techno guys rescurrecting Liza Minelli, Shirley Bassey, Eartha Kitt, Dusty Springfield, Tammy Wynette, etc. (though not always for entire albums.)

Keith Jarrett had this when going back to full-concert solo improvisation.

Glenn Gould going back to the Goldberg Variations?

As I said in the other thread, Edgard Varèse... not albums as such and maybe more about being neglected as opposed to "losing it". Possibly Giacinto Scelsi too.

Hasn't anyone made a verge of death comeback record that was just a bunch of throwaway ditties?

Lee Hazlewood's last record...?

Tony Bennett and Neil Diamond a couple more big ones in recent years. (The Grammy folks and Rick Rubin love these things, obv.)

And Sinatra (after earlier comebacks mentioned above) had Trilogy, with "New York, New York," in 1980.

Not vouching for the worth of any of these of course; just saying they were marketed as comebacks.

>>there's also dance-pop and techno guys rescurrecting Liza Minelli, Shirley Bassey, Eartha Kitt, Dusty Springfield, Tammy Wynette

That had crossed my mind as well. From Dusty in Memphis forward, everything Dusty did was hailed as some sort of return-to-form. The punch line to the joke is that that she never really left form; it was her audience who was returning to form.

Seems to me Ornette Coleman's harmelodic period (say, starting with Dancing In Your Head in 1977) fits here too.

Don't understand the nomination for Sonny Sharrock's Ask The Ages, though; Guitar, Seize The Rainbow, and Highlife had all been reviewed pretty well (even better, I thought) in the few years before that. Or was Ask The Ages (which I haven't heard in forever) supposed to be a return to freer jazz, or something?

Hasn't anyone made a verge of death comeback record that was just a bunch of throwaway ditties?

Lee Hazlewood's last record...?

That's the kind of thing I meant, yeah! Hats off to Lee for skipping the standard exit protocol.

How about alto sax player Frank Morgan :http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=14339

A young acolyte of Charlie Parker, the Minneapolis-born alto saxophonist Frank Morgan saw his first leader's disc, the eponymous Frank Morgan (GNP), released in 1955; three decades would pass until he cut his second. Much of the time in between - 20 years, by his own estimation - was spent in prison, on various drug-related charges (unfortunately Morgan had absorbed not only Bird's musical language but his heroin-fueled lifestyle as well).

Yeah, he did this after years of electric/funk jazz with the V.S.O.P. band (which was the classic 60s Miles quintet, with Miles replaced by Freddie Hubbard). I think it was even called "a return to form". Actually, I think a lot of jazz dudes who did fusion in the 70s returned back to (semi-)acoustic jazz in the 80s, when fusion fell out of vogue. Unfortunately this also spawned the narrow-minded anti-fusion movement lead by Wynton Marsalis, something Herbie most likely never intended to happen.

He also did those electro/hip-hop influenced albums in the mid 80s. I guess they may not have been considered "return to form" by those who enjoyed his 60s work, but they were at least his most commercially successful since "Head Hunters", and "Rockit!" would become an even bigger mainstream/crossover hit than "Chameleon" was.

If we're talking about non-rock returns after long hiatuses (hiati?), Giuseppi Logan just released his first record in 45 years. And Jacques Coursil took 36 years between releases (Black Suite and Minimal Brass).

Buddy Guy - Sweet Tea

― kornrulez6969, Monday, March 22, 2010 10:42 AM (twelve years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Damn Right I've Got The Blues fits too--with Buddy, he needed a comeback (Sweet Tea) from his comeback (all those star-studded '90s LPs).

On that tip, John Lee Hooker: The Healer

Sibelius’ Fifth
Shostakovich’s Fifth

Every Chemical Brothers album after Come With Us to thread.

Well the first thing I was thinking of was how 2010s Chemical Brothers was hailed as a RTF after the allegedly increasingly disappointing 00s albums (those albums certainly don't disappoint me and never have but I'm a big fan and oh god they were so amazing the other night shit).

Big stylistic change aside I suppose RTF was also thrown at Random Access Memories (shame for us who definitely prefer Human After All)

lots of discussion in this vein about jay-z's 4:44, released four years after the commercially successful but artistically vacant magna carta holy grail

Weller is lucky to have seemingly only released well-reviewed solo albums regardless of whether they all deserved it but even so, 22 Dreams was clearly marked as a big sprawling artistic renaissance and one which continued through most of what he's done since.

I can't remember any 'best since Scary Monsters' when Blackstar was released, probably because it was such a cliche by then but also because it is actually better than Scary Monsters.

I completely forgot this was about non-rock sorry everyone

Syro because even though most of the discussion was that it was RDJ's first proper album in 13 years it was also his first well-received album in 18.

Confessions on a Dance Floor even though the supposed artistic quandary Madonna was bouncing back from was just one album.

Maybe Willie Nelson, though his career goes up and down so many times, it's not really a comeback so much as a cyclical peak.

And yes, Buddy Guy's Sweet Tea is a great album.

Forgot one: Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose.

Also, not a financial comeback due to distribution problems, but Tony Bennett's albums with Bill Evans was not only an artistic comeback but the best records he made in his entire career.

Nelson occasionally has a record that gets little more attention for whatever reason (Teatro comes to mind).

Speaking of Tony Bennett, his MTV Unplugged fits (and maybe also this GaGa collaborations?).

"Comeback" does become very subjective when you weigh the parameters. Teatro probably got more attention - that seems to be a rule with anything Lanois produces - but the low-key Spirit is the masterpiece IMHO.

Same with MTV Unplugged and the GaGa recordings. Except for the single "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," I think those are the only Bennett records I've ever heard mentioned in any public discourse that wasn't focused on his life's work. But I think Bennett's own instincts are right, his favorite record, the first Evans collaboration, still holds up as his best.

William Shatner's collab with Ben Folds.

Chemical Bros’ No Geography album definitely a return to form imo. Great gig in Bristol a few nights ago as well.

One of the best gigs I've ever been to but I had waited forever for it

Disagree with No Geography getting the 'return to form' tag though. Only time I've actually noticed it with any stealth was around Further, with the next two albums continuing the supposed streak (although I think CWU/PTB/WATN are even better than anything post-Further)

Also, re: jazz giants like Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis and John Coltrane, you can say there's a widely accepted belief that they all had a return to form, but it mostly involved them conquering their heroin addictions rather than making desultory or terrible records. In each case, they became greater and flat out extraordinary afterwards - had they succumbed to addiction, they would've left behind a solid body of work with a handful of excellent records between them, maybe even a few great ones, but what they came up with later on was beyond what anyone would've predicted.

Thelonious Monk also had his down period - he refused to help the police stick a drug charge on Bud Powell so they took away his cabaret card. After a great body of work at Blue Note, arguably his best, he struggled through a few years while under contract at Prestige before righting the ship at Riverside. He still made good records in the interim but they didn't sell well and Prestige didn't know how to bring him the recognition he deserved - his music was essentially written off by some as being too difficult for the public. When he got his cabaret card back, he was already on Riverside, and they did a fairly good job at raising his profile by having him start with two albums focused on relatively accessible jazz standards. When he cut Brilliant Corners - mostly original material, including the famously difficult title track that had to be edited together - it was actually a commercial success. Combined with a legendary run at the Five Spot (which also served as Coltrane's comeback/ascent), Monk was arguably at the height of his career.