Jean Michel Jarre
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| Jean Michel Jarre | ||
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| Background information | ||
| Born | 1948 | |
| Origin |  Lyon, France |
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| Genre(s) | Instrumental music New Age Electronic music |
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| Occupation(s) | Composer, Artist, Music producer |
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| Instrument(s) | Synthesizer, keyboard | |
| Years active | c. 1971–present | |
| Label(s) | Disques Dreyfus, Polygram, Sony Music, Warner Music, iTunes |
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| Website | www.JeanMichelJarre.com | |
Jean-Michel André Jarre (born August 24, 1948 in Lyon, France) is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is highly regarded as one of the pioneers in the Electronic and New Age music genres, as well as the organiser of record-breaking outdoor spectacles of his music, which feature laser displays and fireworks, linking music with the surrounding environment and architecture. Jarre has sold an estimated 80 million albums and singles over his career. [1]
His original artistic name was Jean-Michel Jarre but c. 1991 he dropped the dash in the name.
Contents |
[edit] Musical career
[edit] Musical upbringing
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Jarre is the son of Maurice Jarre, a famous composer of film music, and France Pejot, a member of the French resistance during the World War II. When Jean Michel was five, however, his father departed for Hollywood and Jarre would not have much contact with him from then on [2]. But it was also at the same time that Jarre began studying classical piano, which he later abandoned. During his youth, he formed a band called Mystère IV. In the late 1960s, he started experimenting with tape loops, radios and other electronic devices, until, in 1968, he joined the Groupe de Recherche Musicale (GRM), under the direction of Pierre Schaeffer, the "father" of musique concrète, where he was introduced to synthesizers.
[edit] The Dreyfus years
In the early 1970s, Jarre released his first solo single La Cage (1972), as well as his first two album projects; Deserted Palace (released on Sam Fox Productions/Dreyfus, 1973) and the soundtrack for the film Les Granges Brulées (Dreyfus, 1973). It wasn't until 1976, however, that Jarre secured a recording contract with Polydor (after the initial first release on Disques Motors) with his first major multi-million selling album, Oxygene (although it wasn't until 1977 when the album was released internationally after the initial release in France that Oxygene became world renowned). Oxygene is considered by many to be the most important and influential electronic music album ever, and therefore one of the most important albums in popular music history. Contrasted with his contemporaries, such as the rather clinical, hard, futuristic sound of Kraftwerk, or the more 'cosmic' and murky Tangerine Dream, Oxygene had a lush, spacey and strongly melodic sound reminiscent of the sound of Walter Carlos on the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange released a few years earlier, and was a big commercial success worldwide. The track Oxygene Part IV was released as a single and became one of the best-known pieces of electronic music ever. Key components of Jarre's sound included his use of the Electroharmonix Small Stone phaser on synthetic string pads, and liberal use of echo on various sound effects generated by the VCS3 synthesizer.
In 1978, his second album Equinoxe was released. Jarre developed his sound, employing more dynamic and rhythmic elements, particularly a greater use of sequencing on basslines. Much of this was achieved using custom equipment developed by his collaborator Michel Geiss. A concert on the Place de la Concorde in Paris in 1979 followed the release. This concert attracted one million people, which was Jarre's first entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the largest crowd at an outdoor concert.
In October 1981, Jarre was the first Western pop-artist who was granted permission to give concerts in the People's Republic of China. Also during this year, Les Chants Magnétiques (Magnetic Fields) was released to much acclaim, and was followed by the release of Les Concerts En Chine (The Concerts in China) album in 1982 and is marked as his first live album release, comprising of recordings from his tour of China during 1981.
In 1983, he created the album Musique pour Supermarché (Music for Supermarkets), which had a print run of one single copy. The album was made expressly to voice Jarre's distaste and disregard for the music business. Jarre destroyed all the master records from his studio work, allowed a radio station (Radio Luxembourg) to broadcast the album once and auctioned it, raising £10,000 for French artists. People recorded the album using their tape recorders while it was broadcast on the radio, so they can listen to that album, at a very poor quality though (the radio station was an AM station). Songs from this album were later reworked into future albums.
In 1984, Zoolook was released, relying heavily on the sampler capabilities of the Fairlight CMI (which Jarre had been using, albeit on a smaller role, since Magnetic Fields). The album featured many different words and speech, recorded in different languages around the world, to create different sounds and effects. Laurie Anderson provided the vocals for the track 'Diva'. With its Rock Music underpinnings, Zoolook resides nicely amongst a mere handful of pop and rock albums (notably Kate Bush's 1982 album "The Dreaming", Yello's 1985 "Stella", 1983's "(Who's Afraid Of) The Art of Noise?" by Art of Noise, 1982's "Naked Eyes" by Naked Eyes, and 1985's "How To Be a Zillionaire" by ABC) that made intensive and sometimes exhaustive use of the Fairlight. It is perhaps too easy to overlook the lengthy list of live (and much-sought) musicians that also made contributions to Zoolook, giving the album a cinematic scope and breadth, courtesy of Mark A Fuller.
In 1986, NASA and the city of Houston asked him to do a concert to celebrate NASA's 25th anniversary and the city of Houston's 150th anniversary. During that concert, astronaut Ronald McNair was to play the saxophone part of Jarre's piece Rendez-Vous VI while in orbit on board the Space Shuttle Challenger. It was to have been the first piece of music recorded in space, for the album Rendez-Vous. After the Challenger disaster of January 28, 1986 which killed McNair, the piece was recorded with a different saxophonist, retitled Ron's piece and the album dedicated to the seven Challenger astronauts. The Houston concert entered the Guinness Book of Records for the audience of over 1.5 million. During the concert, Houston native Kirk Whalum performed Ron McNair's saxophone part on Ron's Piece. The concert featured giant projections of photographic images and laser patterns onto the buildings of downtown Houston, including a gigantic white screen on the front face of the Texaco Heritage Plaza building, which was under construction at the time. Due to vehicles stopping on the freeway passing the concert venue the freeways had to be closed down for the duration of the concert.
Later in 1986, Jarre performed in his birth city of Lyon as part of the celebrations for Pope John Paul II's visit to the city. The Pope was in attendance and introduced the concert with a good-night blessing (a recording of which forms part of the album Cities In Concert - Houston/Lyon).
In 1988 the album Revolutions was released. Jarre, along with guests such as Hank Marvin, the legendary guitarist from The Shadows, performed this album and selected highlights from his discography at an event entitled Destination Docklands in front of 200,000 people (not including the thousands of observers who witnessed the event from outside the official concert gates) in two concerts on October 8 and October 9 1988. The event utilized the industrial backdrop of London's Royal Victoria Docks in the East End. The original show was supposed to be scheduled as a one off on the 24 September 1988, but due to safety issues with both Newham local council and London Fire brigade the license was turned down for the larger event. After Jarres crews had not maintained the safety aspect of the crowd,and after several vigourous meetings and negotiations (and Jarre potentially looking for other sites including Tilbury docks and Edinburgh castle to host the event) the application for the license was finally granted, but for two smaller audience capacity shows. Although the shows went ahead, they were not without hiccups. Bad weather had threatened to break Jarre's "Battleship" floating stage from its moorings, risking safety to the crew and also musicians and choirists. Although the original plan was to have Jarre float across the Royal docks it was deemed too unsafe due to the weather and hence was chained to the dockside. Despite this the concerts were well received, although the audience was soaked due to pouring rain and biting winds, but it was deemed a success and many of the British public attending will recall it as a very special and unique experience, including Princess of Wales (Lady Diana) who attended the concert and became a friend and fan of Jarre's music over his career.
One aspect of the show generally regarded as amusing was during the transportation of several large Mirror Balls (some 4 m diameter) which Jarre had commissioned for the show to be hung from the large dockside cranes. Whilst en route to the docks, one of the lorries had lost one of the balls on the roadside. On the same night a satellite was due to enter the Earths atmosphere from space. A member of the public reported the sighting of a sphere like spacecraft rolling on the road, and hence caused major panic, as police feared it was the satellite!
On July 14, 1990 Jarre broke his own record in the Guinness Book of Records again with a concert at La Defense, Paris where 2.5 million people watched Jarre light up the Parisian business district. The album En Attendant Cousteau (Waiting for Cousteau) was also released in this year, and was dedicated to the French sea explorer, Jacques Cousteau.
During early 1991, Jarre started promotion for a concert to take place in the Pyramids of Teotihuacan, Mexico during the great solar eclipse of July 11, 1991, but problems with several sponsors and local authorities halted the project. [3]
In 1993, Jarre released his first work to be largely influenced by the techno-music scene that had been developing since about 1989. Entitled "Chronologie", the album was, from a technical standpoint, a revision to a concept employed by Jarre in his "Oxygene/Equinoxe" period, where a grandiose overture provides the emotional feel and sonic timbre for the rest of the following, more rhythmic pieces.
This time, however, the tracks would feature newer state-of-the-art synthesizers, swooshing sampled clocks (fitting the theme of the album) and contemporary rhythms driving the tempo – a style that became threaded throughout most of the work that followed. In inspiring a generation of electronic musicians with his work from the 1970s and '80s, Jarre in turn found himself drawn to the trance genre which followed him in the '90s. He enlisted several artists of that generation, including Praga Khan, to remix tracks for the B sides of the singles. Jarre followed through the promotion of the Chronologie album with a tour,the first large scale tour Jarre had undertaken since the mini tour of China back in 1981. The Tour entitled "Europe In Concert" was a series of concerts on a smaller scale than that of previous one-offs, but heavily featured a backdrop of makeshift skyscrapers and also skytrackers, laser imaging, and a fireworks. This took Jarre across several European cities, including Lausanne, Mont St Michel, London, Manchester, Barcelona and Versailles Palace in Paris. Jarre did one final concert in Hong Kong in 1994, unfortunately due to laws, fireworks were omitted from the show. Jarre released a double live album of Hong Kong, which featured many of the same renditions of the Europe In Concert tracks, with some reworkings of the older album versions.
However, to fans reminiscing for the subtle tonal quality and phased sounds of Jarre's early work, 1997 would not be a disappointing year. "Oxygene 7–13" was released to reveal that a coherent sonic story over the course of an album was something that Jarre could still achieve in the sequel-of-sorts to his 1976 landmark release. This album brought back the VCS 3 synthesizer and Mellotron, among others. One can hear inspiration from "Oxygene (Part IV)" and "Equinoxe (Part II)" in the two-movement piece "Oxygene 7", while many of the other techno-based tracks on the album suggest a combination of Jarre's inspiration from both the "Oxygene" and "Chronologie" periods. "Oxygene 10" would also be the first piece composed by Jarre to feature him playing a theremin. Jarre once again toured Europe to support the album, this time focusing on smaller, indoor venues with a stripped down version of his large outdoor extravaganzas. Jarre visited several countries he had never played before.
On September 6, 1997, Jarre played in Moscow to celebrate the 850th anniversary of the city. The Moscow State University was used as the backdrop for a spectacular display of image projections, skytrackers and fireworks, with an audience of 3.5 million. This was Jarre's fourth record and entry into the Guinness record book for the largest free concert audience ever. The concert was also the same day that the Princess Diana funeral took place. Jarre spoke of his friendship with her and requested a moment of silence and then dedicated a song in her memory called "Souvenirs" (Aka Souvenir of China).
[edit] Metamorphoses
On December 31 1999 Jarre held a spectacular music and light show in the Egyptian desert, near Giza. The show, called The 12 Dreams of the Sun, celebrated the new millennium and 5,000 years of civilization in Egypt. It also offered a preview of his new album, Metamorphoses.the concert which started on new years eve and followed all the way through to the dawn of the new Millennium in a 12 hour spectacular which including many performances from local artists and Musicians,the concert used the backdrop of the Great pyramids to project images onto,but fog during the evening concert by Jarre on the evening caused the projections on the facades of the Pyramids to be blocked from view,jarre played for around 2 hours during the build up to the New millennium with a countdown at Midnight and spectacular firework display and then returned on stage in the early morning to perform a second slot to see in the first sunrise of the new Millennium.
Jarre released "Metamorphoses", his first fully-vocal album, in 2000. The compositions and their arrangement on this techno-based album co-produced with Joachim Garraud are extremely imaginative, and marked a departure from Jarre's previous style. He began integrating sound effects, including the radio interference from Mobile phones (used on the track "Tout est Bleu") and also sampled his coffee making machine and also from Apple computers, including an implementation of Macintalk, a Macintosh program that allowed Jarre to have a computer generated voice speak his strange lyrics on the song "Love, Love, Love". Laurie Anderson made her second guest appearance in the Jarre discography on the opening track. The listener was also treated to collaborations with Natacha Atlas on vocals, and Sharon Corr of Irish pop group The Corrs on violin. "Metamorphoses" was not released in the USA until a couple of years later.
In 2001 Jarre performed a concert in collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke and Tetsuya "TK" Komuro in the Okinawa beaches, to celebrate the "real" beginning of the new millennium. The concert was called Rendez-vous in Space and the short-lived group called itself The ViZitors. Later that year, Jarre played at the Acropolis in Greece a charity concert for the Elpida Foundation.
[edit] The Aero years
In 2002, Jarre performed a concert called "Aero" at Gammel Vrå Enge wind farm, just outside Aalborg in Denmark, to a rather wet audience of approximately 50,000. A studio-album of mostly retooled Jarre classics was later released in 2004, in combined DVD and CD forms. The DVD featured 5.1 sound, with DTS and Dolby Digital tracks. Jarre affirmed that this was the first ever musical work conceived for 5.1 sound. The video to accompany the musical tracks was a fixed very close-up shot of Anne Parillaud's eyes reacting in real time to the music. The album also featured inside the sleeve notes a collection of various pictures and artwork of Jarre's fans from around the world.
2002 would also mark the release of "Sessions 2000", a set of experimental synth-jazz pieces that were stylistically distinct from anything Jarre had previously released. The work on this album is decidedly less rhythm-oriented than Jarre's previous work from "Equinoxe" on. It is also rumoured to have been a quick ditch effort album for Jarre to get out of his contractual terms with Francis Dreyfus.
In 2003, Jarre released the album Geometry of Love for dance club VIP Lounge, in Paris, taking the 'inspired by the club generation' all the way. While Jarre's contemporary albums found themselves drawn to the pulsing rhythms of the dancefloor, Geometry of Love had its spiritual home in the chill-out room at the back, with lush, sprawling, sublime works washing over the listener.
On October 10, 2004, Jarre performed two consecutive concerts, first in the Forbidden City, followed immediately by a smaller concert in Tienanmen Square in China, to commemorate open China’s "Year of France" cultural exchange season. Choosing a picturesque location at Wumen Gate in the Forbidden City, Jarre performed with both modern and traditional Chinese orchestras, choir, opera singers, and several guest musicians including Chen Lin, and guitarist Patrick Rondat. Jarre was prevented from performing with China’s Cui Jian whose songs were sung by student demonstrators in 1989. While it is the first section of the performance that is of historical significance (the Forbidden City being very much as its name suggests - the audience comprised of about 15,000 spectators, most of them special guests), the second half had a more muted stage arrangement, providing the closest Jarre had ever had to an 'after-gig' show - with an audience of 9,000 expectant Chinese. This concert was broadcast in HDTV with 5.1 sound by some satellite channels. 5.1 sound was also used on the stage. A combined DVD/CD of these concerts, Jarre In China was released in 2005 with THX-mastered sound.
On August 26, 2005, Jarre performed a long-form concert called "Space of Freedom" in Gdańsk, Poland to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Solidarity. Around 170,000 people attended the paid-entry concert. Lech Wałęsa was present on stage.
On September 10, 2005 Jarre made a short-form concert at the LinX Live Show for the official opening of the Eurocam Media Centre, containing Belgian HDTV Company Euro1080s new HDTV Studios, in Lint, Belgium.
In September, 2006 Tadlow Music released a special symphonic album, titled "The Symphonic Jean Michel Jarre" with 20 cover versions of Jarre tracks on 2 CDs. Jarre has supported this album, including his voice in one track. There is also a special limited 3-disc set with a bonus DVD containing 5.1 surround mixes of all the tracks.
In his role of UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, Jean-Michel Jarre performed a concert named "Water for Life" in the Sahara Desert, near Merzouga, Morocco on December 16, 2006, to celebrate the year of desertification in the world.[4][5]
Jarre has released a new original studio album, being his first real studio album since "Metamorphoses".[6][7] This new studio album, entitled "Téo & Téa", was released by Warner Music and iTunes on March 26 2007. There are two singles planned to be released for this album[8], with the first single promoted on YouTube around the end of January[9]. A web site was created to promote this album.
During 2006, Jarre was stated to produce an experimental TV series directed by Ellibert Mozart Fuzzkhan titled Mort-Mouvance. The program and site turned out to be a hoax, and Jarre is pressing legal charges against the owners of those sites [10][11]
[edit] Personal life
Jarre was married to Flore Guillard from January 20, 1975 until circa 1977.[12] Later he was married to British actress and photographer Charlotte Rampling from October 7, 1978 until circa 1998. In 2002 he became publicly engaged to French actress Isabelle Adjani, but later she ended this relationship.[13] On May 12, 2005 he married French actress Anne Parillaud.
Jarre has three children:
- Emilie, with Flore Guillard.
- Barnaby Southcombe, Charlotte Rampling's son from a previous marriage.
- David, Charlotte and Jarre's son.
[edit] Awards and recognitions
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An asteroid, 4422 Jarre, has been named in honor of him.[14]
[edit] Selected discography
A complete discography is available at jarre.ch.
[edit] Singles
[edit] Studio albums
[edit] Limited edition studio albums
[edit] Live albums
[edit] Original Scores
[edit] Soundtracks (credited)A complete list is available at Jean-Michel Jarre at the Internet Movie Database
[edit] Remixes and covers
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[edit] Compilations
[edit] Video releases
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[edit] Chart Positions
- Oxygene - #2 UK #78 US
- Equinoxe - #11 UK #126 US
- Les Chants Magnetiques - #6 UK #98 US
- Les Concerts En Chine - #6 UK #1 Portugal
- Rendez-Vous - #9 UK #52 US
- Rendez-Vous 4 (single) - #1 Portugal
- Revolutions - #3 UK
Source for UK and U.S. chart positions: Connoly & Company
[edit] Concerts
[edit] Major spectacles
- Main article: List of Jean-Michel Jarre concerts
During his career, and specially before 1990, Jean-Michel Jarre has given few concerts, compared to other artists. But most of these concerts have been big scale spectacles, often with audiences of millions, and using large buildings or even entire cities as stage. He has toured just three times, the first one in China during 1981, and twice in Europe during the 1990s.
[edit] Other performances
- 1971 - AOR (Paris, France)
- 1989 - Destination Trocadero (Paris, France)
- 1994 - Jarre Unplugged (Paris, France)
- 1995 - Festa Italiana (Turin, Italy)
- 1995 - UNESCO 50th Anniversary (Paris, France)
- 1997 - Wetten, dass..? (Vienna, Austria)
- 1998 - Fifa World Player 97 (Disneyland Paris, France)
- 1998 - France Festival (Tokyo, Japan)
- 1998 - FNAC Paris (Paris, France)
- 2005 - Once upon a time (Copenhagen, Denmark).
- 2005 - LinX (Lint, Belgium)
[edit] Notable instruments
Throughout his concerts, Jarre uses several unusual or custom-built instruments. Some of these are:
- The theremin, an early electronic instrument
- The laser harp
- The Cristal Baschet [16] [17]
- The RhythmiComputer, Digisequencer and Matrisequencer, electronic sequencers designed and built by Michel Geiss
- The LAG Circulaire, LAG Insecte, LAG Meuble, LAG Grand Central, Magic Keyboard and other custom keyboards (usually of semi-circular shape) made by LAG
[edit] Miscellanea
- Jarre has changed the titles of some of his compositions throughout the years. A list of such compositions is available at List of Jean Michel Jarre compositions with multiple titles.
- The main music theme from the videogame Captain Blood is his track Ethnicolor.
- The main music theme from the Commodore 64 game "Loco" is a remake of Equinoxe 5.
- The music to the Commodore 64 game "Bomb Jack" is a remake of Magnetic Fields 2.
[edit] References
- ^ Press-release by Dreyfus Records
- ^ Biography on Romanfrance.com
- ^ (Spanish) Proceso Mexican magazine - June 1991
- ^ News from JarreUK
- ^ UNESCO
- ^ News from JarreUK
- ^ (Spanish) Spanish fanclub
- ^ News from JarreUK
- ^ Teo and Tea, introduction (WMA)
- ^ (French) webzinemakter newsarticle
- ^ (French) Jean-Michel Jarre : halte aux imposteurs!
- ^ (French) Jean-Michel Jarre's Genealogy
- ^ (French) Teemix - June 24, 2004
- ^ Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
- ^ (French) List of films by Jacques-Yves Cousteau
- ^ Equipment details from Jarrography
- ^ Thomas Bloch official website
