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.

LIVING THE JAZZ LIFE: CONVERSATIONS WITH FORTY MUSICIANS ABOUT THEIR CAREERS IN JAZZ

by W Royal Stokes

Book review by John Clare, JazzChord Oct/Nov, 2001

Allow us some levity with the multi-barreled American name. When we think of Garner Ted Armstrong, William F Buckley Jr, James Lincoln Collier, and of course the inestimable Professor Herman J Pipesucker, we tend to expect pomposity, bombast, superciliousness. What to make of W Royal Stokes...

THE PHONEY DUKE

by John Clare

http://johnclare.extempore.com.au/, May 10, 2016

When you feel you have very little time the deepest enthusiasms of your life – those which embody whatever meaning your life has had – sometimes intensify in an extraordinary blending of immediate pleasure (visceral and emotional), memory, and what can seem like a column of freezing white adrenalin, like cirrus clouds soaring in flawless blue, pressing ice chips into you; thrills of fear...

DR JAZZ: THE LAST DAYS OF THE STRAWBERRY HILL

Film review by John Clare

JazzChord, May/Jun, 1998

This is not an objective review, for two very good reasons: David Perry is a very old friend of mine, and I speak briefly three times in his truly fantastic movie, which, as it turns out, chronicles the last days of the Strawberry Hill pub as a jazz venue...