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.

CELLAR DWELLERS FACE BRIGHT LIGHTS

Gail Brennan/John Clare on the film Beyond El Rocco

Sydney Morning Herald, December 30, 1987

After some decades of derision in the rock press jazz is being recognised once more as a music and an ethos that has often stood outside the conventions of society.  Paradoxically, the derision began in the 1960s when the world at large caught up with the jazz musicians' libertarian values - the very time at which the foundations for today’s massive rock industry were laid. The wheel has now turned full circle…

SANDY EVANS & JUDY BAILEY: WOMEN OUTLAST THE LEGEND

by John Clare/Gail Brennan

Sydney Morning Herald, July 10, 1993

Tales of eccentricity and excess can be amusing, whether they involve jazz musicians, famous conductors or postal clerks, but many music lovers are seriously bored by stories of Charlie Parker's appetite for sex and drugs. Nor are they much interested in who "cut" whom at what fabled jam session. Goodbye "jazz legends"…

DON BURROWS & TEN PART INVENTION

by Gail Brennan/John Clare

Sydney Morning Herald, March, 1991

Some say that there is only one Don Burrows, but there are at least three. The Burrows who plays clarinet takes his band into deep cliche. He is not outstanding on this instrument, and probably retains it for its nostalgic value. Burrows is a very good flautist, often fresh, but when he plays this instrument the music overall can sound curiously pretentious…