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.
Dudley Moore
RONNIE'S PLACE
by John Clare
April 25, 2017
In the auspicious year of 1965 my ex wife Pamela Greaves and I sailed to England on a budget Italian liner. It was cheaper to sail than to fly in those days. A kind of war broke out between the Aussies and the Poms. Well a faction of each. The Poms were gangsters of a kind going back with their tails between their legs...
Ten Part Invention's Ken James
JAZZ MASTERPIECE
John Clare reviews the Ten Part Invention album Unidentified Spaces
The Monthly, October 2011
Ten Part Invention is a Sydney band formed more than 20 years ago to perform Australian jazz music. It still has a solid, often ecstatic, following. This album has a wealth of writing from two band members who are among our greatest composers:,Sandy Evans and Miroslav Bukovsky...
John Clare/Gail Brennan
BELL LECTURE: JAZZ POSSIBILITIES REALISED & DENIED
by Gail Brennan/John Clare
Second Annual Bell Jazz Lecture, October 8, 1994
Was there a time when we were not looking back on some other time - some Golden Age - of which the present is a pale reflection? It seems that many cultures have a dreamtime, a golden age, a time when things existed in their purest essence, when legends were made, when the gods walked the earth. Many individuals have such a time in their lives…