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 NEW DON BURROWS QUINTET

 Album review by John Clare

Jazz Down Under, July/August, 1976

It’s a toss-up who is Australia's best-known jazz musician: Don Burrows or Graeme Bell. In fact, besides Warren Daly, John Sangster, Dick Hughes and Col Nolan, how many other Australian jazz musicians can you think of in a minute or so? Shame! That so many people think of Burrows when they think of Australian jazz, has sometimes annoyed me. It is often difficult to get anyone to come and hear other musicians who seem to me a little more interesting in some ways, if not quite so polished…

THAT OLD NEW THING

 A Quiet Reflection by John Clare

JazzChord, Apr/May 2001 and Jun/Jul 2001 editions

In the century that just flicked by, artists did these things: praised war (the Futurists), extolled hysteria and paranoia (the Surrealists), hung himself up with hooks through his skin (Stelarc), presented silence as a composition (Cage), improvised large canvasses in a lather of splashing, slashing, dribbling and pouring (Pollock), banished all planes but the vertical and horizontal - and therefore all angles but the right angle (Mondrian). And so on…

MUSIC IS AN OPEN SKY

 by John Clare

Jazz Down Under, July/August, 1977

Public holidays hacked into April's Basement edition of Music Is An Open Sky festival, and broke the extraordinary feeling of continuity which had linked each Monday and Tuesday to the next during earlier editions of this important event. What remained were isolated peaks as memorable as those of the first festival, some quite acceptable plateaus, and the reassurance that Australian jazz is still moving in several directions at once. Dave Levy's trio opened the festival and they remain in my memory as one of the best things heard…