Musicians - Jean-Michel Jarre

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	Musicians - Jean-Michel Jarre

Jean-Michel André Jarre (born August 24, 1948 in Lyon, France) is a French composer and producer. He is the son of Maurice Jarre, a composer of film music. Jarre is regarded as one of the pioneers in new age and electronic music genre, as well as an innovator, for staging spectacular outdoor concerts of his music, which feature laser displays and fireworks, linking music with architecture and environment.

Musical career

Jarre began studying piano at the age of five, but he abandoned his classical training later. During his youth he formed a band called Mystere IV. In late 1960s, he started experimenting with tape loops, radios and other electronic devices, until, in 1968, he joined the Groupe de Recherches Musicales, under the direction of Pierre Schaeffer, the "father" of musique concrète, where he was introduced to synthesizers.

In the mid-1970s, Jarre secured a recording contract with Polydor. His first album for them, Oxygene, was released in 1976. 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 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.

In 1983, he created the album Musique pour supermarchés (Music for supermarkets), which had a print run of only a 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 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. 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.

In 1988 Jarre, along with guests such as Hank Marvin, the legendary guitarist from The Shadows, performed in front of the industrial backdrop of London's East End Docklands, in a concert entitled Destination Docklands.

On July 14 1990 Jean-Michel broke his own record in Guinness Book of Records again with a concert in La Defense, Paris where 2.5 million people watched Jarre light up the Parisian business district.

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