Musical career

Musical upbringing
This short section requires expansion.

Jarre is the son of Maurice Jarre, a famous composer of film music, and France Pejot, a member of the French resistance during 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 . 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 Myst?re 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 concr?te, where he was introduced to synthesizers.


The Dreyfus years

Oxygene (1977) was Jarre's breakthrough album.In the early 1970s, Jarre released his first solo single La Cage (1969), 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 Brul?es (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 some to be the most important and influential electronic music album ever. 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 Dutch organ Eminent (strings), Electroharmonix Small Stone phaser on synthetic string pads, and liberal use of echo on various sound effects generated by the VCS3 synthesizer. He also manipulated a Korg Minipops drum machine to create totally unique rhythms and drum sounds.

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. These concerts were the first to feature the Laser harp, one of Jarre's signature electronic instruments. Also during this year, Les Chants Magn?tiques (Magnetic Fields - note that the French title is a pun which also means Magnetic Songs, or Magnetic Singing) 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. The sounds of the Magnetic Fields album are primarily based in the Fairlight CMI synthesizer, and the album was a huge leap forward in both technical complexity and fidelity.

In 1983, he created the album Musique pour Supermarch? (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, 1984'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.

Jarre recorded the album Rendez-Vous after being inspired by the sounds of the Elka synthesizer, which he employed on the record liberally. It also features his first heavy use of the Moog synthesizer on a studio album. 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. 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 Jarre's crews failing to maintain crowd safety, and after several vigorous 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 Diana who attended the concert and became a friend and fan of Jarre's music over his career.

One amusing aspect of the show was during the transportation of several large mirror balls (some 4m 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 Earth's 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.


Waiting for Cousteau (1990)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. Some sources mention problems with several sponsors and local authorities as the reasons that halted the project

However, in the documentary Making the Steamroller Fly included in the Oxygene Moscow DVD, Jarre and other collaborators mention that the concert was cancelled due to the fact that one cargo ship containing a specially built, pyramidal stage and other technical equipment sunk during the trip to Mexico, making it impossible for the crew to replace it in time for the concert. Jarre says that his disappointment was such that he could not cope with Mexican food for two years.

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, the Mont St Michel, London, Manchester, Barcelona and the Versailles Palace near 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, Eminent 310U, 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).