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.

CHARLIE PARKER THE ARTIST

by John Clare 

Jazz Magazine, September/October, 1982

When Charlie Parker — the Bird — died in 1955 of a host of dissipations, there appeared almost immediately on New York walls the legend ‘Bird Lives’. Parker’s meeting with Jean-Paul Sartre had been recorded by writers with the same tone of awe and baffled curiosity as a similarly brief and laconic meeting between Marcel Proust and James Joyce. “I like your playing,” said Parker to Sartre. A small joke to some, while others have read much into it…

ON CLIFFORD BROWN & MAX ROACH

by John Clare

Jazz Magazine, September/October, 1982

Clifford Brown is an odd one out of the American line of talent dying young. He was not addicted to drugs or booze, nor seemed self-destructive in any way. From all accounts he was Clean Living Clive. His playing was getting better and better, stronger and stronger, until it seemed that he would burst with the joy of what he could do on the trumpet — and then at 25 years of age he was killed in a car accident…

JAZZ IN ITS PLACE: VENUE 505

by John Clare

Music Trust’s Loudmouth, December 6, 2017

As I no longer ride at night or in rain, it can be a fair hike up from Wentworth Park, taking the Bay Street option. Cutting across  to Broadway, passing between the two great globes of perspex embraced by steel hoops that face each other from the corners of the old Grace Brothers buildings (which gave their names to Are You being Served?, an English department store series). In fact each has a circle of griffins bearing it on their winged backs…