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.

ALL THAT JAZZ

by John Clare

The National Times, January 23-28, 1978

I am on the phone, discovering all over again how hard it is to get a group of musicians to be at the same place at the same time. I dislike telephoning, even fear it, as though I might follow my voice into the void of the mouthpiece, but I have been doing it all day. I have been asked to organise a jazz concert which will be a rare chance to have people hear some of the great legendary bands. The trouble is that not one of these great legendary bands seems to be available as a working entity. The Last Straw is essential to the plan; I believe it is the most inspiring band in the country; so I ring John Pochée and he agrees, but he thinks bassist Ron Philpott is doing another job that night; also pianist Tony Esterman. He'll ring them to see if they can find deputies. Much later, Pochée rings back…