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.

THE REAL PHIL TRELOAR SITS DOWN

by John Clare 

Nation Review, 7-13 April, 1977

The trouble with the best contemporary jazz is that its dynamic range is too wide for the venues in which it has to survive. Often too wild for dinner music, it is frequently too delicate to ride over those who would rather chatter and drink. It is a very rugged chamber music. That contemporary jazz can be heard at all in undiluted form is a minor miracle...

MILES AHEAD

by John Clare

June, 2018

I have not listened to this collaboration of Miles Davis and arranger, composer, orchestrator Gil Evans for a long time.  Well Miles has done many things since that magic time.  Right now enthusiasm has been shaken.  I have lost my beautiful blue-framed distance glasses and I have no money.  I am in an old person’s hospice.  Eating-wise I would be better off here, but I seem to be getting better…

OBITUARY: TONY WILLIAMS 1945-1997

by John Clare

JazzChord, Apr/May, 1997

The American drummer and composer Tony Williams was born in Chicago on December 12, 1945. He died in New York on February 23, 1997 of a heart attack after emergency gall bladder surgery two days before. For more than a decade, beginning in the early 1960s, he gave us drumming that was as consistently creative, exciting and accomplished - and as crucial to the music of its time - as any in the history of jazz…