JOHN CLARE

This section is dedicated to the work of John Clare, who began writing in the early 70s, and has long been regarded as the doyen of Australian jazz writers. Helen Garner, in her preface to Clare's book Take Me Higher, describes how she used to cut out his writings under his Gail Brennan pseudonym and paste them into her diary. Originally she thought the articles were written by a woman. She describes his writing as "superbly literate and articulate, deeply informed, yet completely ordinary in tone, even at their most elated. A relaxed freedom flowed through everything he wrote. He was fearless. He rejoices. He celebrated. Years later, an art critic who admired him said to me: John Clare’s an ecstatic.” Many of John Clare's articles that were published previously in various publications are collected here. Click on the INDEX button for a list of articles in this folder.

JAZZ CENTRE 44: SOUNDING MANY CHORDS

by John Clare

Excerpt from the book Bodgie Dada and the Cult of Cool, 1995

No picture of the outside of Jazz Centre 44 at St Kilda has come to light. According to memory, it resembled a Martello tower, except that large windows followed the top storey most of the way round. One musician described it as being like ‘a rotunda’ with a centre-peaked roof. A photo taken inside in 1957, its first year as a jazz club, shows that the tops of those dry, thick palms that grow in suburban Sydney and Melbourne stood outside at least two of the windows…

SIMA: A MAJOR CATALYST

by John Clare

Excerpt from the book Bodgie Dada and the Cult of Cool, 1995

The Sydney Improvised Music Association (SIMA) was formed in 1984 at a meeting convened by jazz coordinator Eric Myers. Six years later, SIMA commissioned me to write a brief summary of their activities. With the Melbourne Jazz Co-operative, SIMA has been a major catalyst in the current surge of activity…

THELONIOUS MONK: MONASTIC MAD MAGICAL

by Gail Brennan/John Clare

Sydney Morning Herald, September 15, 1990

A red menagerie lion runs around the world, and an equally fabulous thin line separates genius from madness. The second of these propositions is sometimes true, but a thin line also separates many otherwise unexceptional people from mental disorder…