Photo: Eddy Brière
Jean-Michel Jarre, born August 24, 1948 in the 4th arrondissement of Lyon, is a French composer and performer of electronic music, who has sold over 80 million records during his career.
Source: Wikipedia
CHILDHOOD
Jean-Michel André Jarre was born on August 24, 1948 in Lyon, in the Croix Rousse district, into a family of musicians. He is the son of Maurice Jarre (composer of film scores) and of France Pejot (resistance in Lyon). He was influenced from an early age by his musician and handyman grandfather, André Jarre, co-inventor of the first mixer for French radio.
His parents separated in 1953, the year of his father's final departure for the United States. Jean-Michel Jarre then lives alone with his mother in Vanves, in the Parisian suburbs. Evoking his childhood, he declared in 2009: “My father was more of a gaping hole, an absence, than a musical reference. Every decade I've said to myself, this time it's okay. But I've talked about it a lot, it makes me sad. It is a classic thing that parents separate when you are 5 years old, it happens to everyone. But we had no relationship at all with either of the two for over forty years ... ".
He started playing the piano at the age of eight. Discouraged by a teacher deemed too strict, he abandoned the instrument for two years. Her mother takes her to a Parisian jazz club, "Le Chat qui Pêche (en)", run by one of her friends Mimi Ricard (she met in the Resistance Lyonnaise). Archie Shepp, Don Cherry and Chet Baker introduce the child to music there.
With the support of his mother, Jean-Michel Jarre took harmony and counterpoint lessons at the Paris Conservatory, with Jeanine Rueff. He developed classical bases, while being interested in contemporary music, learning the electric guitar and playing in the early 1960s in several rock and jazz groups, including the Mysteries IV with which he won the first prize of the springboard of the Paris Fair.
He made an appearance in the film 'Des garcons et des filles' by Étienne Périer, released in 1967, with his group the Dustbins. He performs two songs in the film 'Let me take your hands' and 'I feel so down'.
He obtained his baccalaureate in 1966, then a degree in literature at the Sorbonne, where he notably wrote an essay comparing Gounod's Faust to that of Goethe.
THE BEGINNING
AOR & LA CAGE
The year 1968 marked the first turning point in his life: on the one hand, he finished his degree in comparative literature, on the other, he met Pierre Schaeffer and left the conservatory for the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), an organization created by Schaeffer bringing together musicians and researchers studying contemporary and experimental music, trying to explore new avenues in music. Passionate about electroacoustic music, he quickly proved to be skilled at handling tape recorders and magnetic tapes, already developing sketches of compositions. There he discovered the first synthesizers, the VCS 3 and the Moog. There he met great composers like Bernard Parmegiani and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
In 1969, he composed his first pieces of electroacoustic music: first a five-minute electro-acoustic piece for the Maison des jeunes et de la culture (MJC) Saint-Exupéry in Reims entitled Happiness is a sad song, then Erosmachine (including a theme formed by the sound of a scissors blade rubbing a piano string (!), will be taken up in the introduction of Chronology 2) and La Cage (composed of heterogeneous sounds of musical saw, electric guitar recorded at the reverse, drums, rattles, wooden spoons, synthesizers and female screams). These two songs were released on vinyl in a little over a hundred copies in 1971 at Pathé-Marconi, while he had just left the GRM the previous year, in disagreement with the spirit of the group.
It was also in 1971 that Jean-Michel Jarre created the event for the first time in his life: thanks to the GRM, he enjoyed a certain notoriety as a composer, he was called upon by the choreographer Norbert Schmucki and was entrusted with the composition of the score of the ballet Aor (light in Hebrew) for the inauguration of the new ceiling of the Paris Opera due to Chagall, becoming the youngest musician to play live in this legendary hall, thus introducing it for the first time electroacoustic music. The theme of Aor is the dance of the seven veils performed by Salome to subjugate Herod Antipas. Each music represents a color of the rainbow. This work is not melodic, it is made up of sounds from VCS 3. A sequence from Aor was used later in Industrial Revolution 1, it is the sound of metal rule that can be heard at the end of one minute fifty.
With this ballet, Jarre becomes the youngest composer to see one of his works performed at the opera. This is the opportunity for him to see his career begin where many musicians end it. This first essay was quickly followed by two others: Le Labyrinthe, then Dorian Gray, which was partially broadcast on television.
He therefore works independently. In 1972, he composed the credits for the television show Sport en fête presented by Michel Drucker, worked on the music of two songs by the group Triangle: Récréation and Le matin du premier jour.
He meets Philippe Besombes with whom he shares the same conception and the same approach to electronic music. They collaborate on stage during electroacoustic music concerts.
ZIG ZAG
In 1973 he composed the music for Lady, a song performed by the group Bill & Buster and wrote the song Jolly Dolly for the group Blue Vamp. His production was noticed by the magician Dominique Webb with whom he worked for a show at the Olympia, which resulted in a disc entitled Hypnosis.
He also composes for the cinema or the song: he signs the soundtrack of the film Les Granges brûlées by Jean Chapot, with Alain Delon and Simone Signoret, which comes out on LP. We find there his first success Zig-zag, taken again by many groups, but of which the only true version is published in singles under the name of Foggy Joe.
POPCORN
Soon, his second album Deserted Palace was released, a very experimental album composed on the Farfisa organ and on the VCS 3, distributed as a compilation of background music created for the American company Underground Muzaks, and not broadcast in the circuit of classical record stores.
Jarre also released his own version of Popcorn (a huge 1970s hit composed by Gershon Kingsley) under the pseudonym Jamie Jefferson, with the B-side Black bird which is actually a different version of Bridge of Promises that we originally find on the Deserted Palace album. Other 45s follow: Cartolina / Helza under the pseudonym 1906 with a cover which takes the poster of the cabaret Le Chat noir.
In these years, Jean-Michel Jarre lives an intense period of producer, composer and lyricist, and is at the origin of several hits. He wrote most of the texts for the albums Les Paradis perdus (1973) and Les Mots Blues (1974) for Christophe with the eponymous hits and others like Señorita. There he met musicians that he would meet again later: Dominique Perrier and Roger Rizzitelli, who for their part founded the group Space Art, author of the title Onyx which would be somewhat successful. He is also a director for Christophe's show at the Olympia in 1975, in which a piano can be seen flying. It was then that he met Francis Dreyfus, his future publisher.
Also in 1975, he fine-tuned two texts and a music for Françoise Hardy's 45 rpm What are you going to do? and The Countdown, as well as four pieces of music La Fille que J'aime, Parade, La Belle et la Bête (a theme taken up for Second rendez-vous) and La mort du cygne (theme taken again for Third Rendez-Vous) for Gérard Lenorman. Then came in 1976 The child with white hair, and in 1977 Ou sont les femmes?, and The blues in the heart for Patrick Juvet, from the albums Death or alive and Paris by night in the production of which he participates.
It was in 1974 that he met Michel Geiss who would become a friend and helps him for a long time of his career by designing the Matrisequencer and the Rythmicomputer (used for the first time on the Equinoxe album), then the Digisequencer (used for the first time on the Chronology album).
CAREER
1970s
The year 1976 marks the beginning of Jean-Michel Jarre's career. In August, he started recording a concept album: Oxygène. There he develops a musical journey of about forty minutes, separated into 6 movements. There he uses analog synthesizers of the time with great fluidity and sensitivity that radically break with the cold and technical style of Kraftwerk for example. The album was released in November, and quickly became an international phenomenon as its success was overwhelming and exceptional. The famous Oxygen IV theme is taking over the top spots in sales and charts around the world. Jarre receives on this occasion the Grand Prix du Disque of the Charles Cros Academy. It was also in 1976 that Émilie, her first child, was born. He uses VHS technology for the first time for the production of the Oxygen IV clip. The 45 turns into a worldwide hit and is used for several credits of television and radio broadcasts (including the famous Basket of Jean-Loup Lafont on Europe 1).
In 1977, he was named Personality of the Year by the American magazine People. Polydor purchases the distribution rights for its works worldwide.
During 1978, he married the British actress Charlotte Rampling on October 6; the same year their son David was born. Professionally, in January he began recording the studio album Equinoxe, composed in 18 months and released in November. This one, once again centered on atmospheres, the work on the evocation of natural sounds (rain, wind, sea…), confirms the success of Oxygen. It is also the beginning of the collaboration with Michel Geiss. The cover of the album Le trac is a work produced by Michel Granger like that of Oxygène. A video was to accompany this album but the project did not succeed. His first video did not come out until 1980 to illustrate the Concorde concert in 30 minutes. Several sequences having been re-filmed in the studio in order to make up for the poor production of the TF1 direct. Also in 1978, he received a Midem Award.
However, he did not neglect his work for the cinema since he signed the same year the soundtrack of the film La Maladie de Hambourg by Peter Fleischmann, which notably uses pieces taken from the albums Oxygen and Equinox.
The year 1979 revealed him as a showman: for July 14, he offered (surrounded by synthesizers of all kinds, he played, alone, on machines belonging to a certain Francis Rimbert, demonstrator at Korg) his first free concert in exterior, Place de la Concorde in Paris. Entitled Paris Bleu Blanc Rouge, the event attracts a million spectators, not counting the viewers since the concert is broadcast on Eurovision on television and an official video cassette will be published (in fact a long video clip of half an hour retracing the event), the first music video to be marketed in France. This musically and visually exceptional concert entered the Guinness Book, while inaugurating the concept of the mega-concert which would become its signature: a total spectacle, mixing music, light shows, lasers, pyrotechnic effects and giant projections. Mick Jagger present at the concert is blown away by the realization of this type of concert, a collaboration with the Rolling Stones is even mentioned without it seeing the light of day.
He received the SACEM gold medal for his contribution to the dissemination of French culture around the world. Indeed, Jean-Michel is one of the most famous French musicians around the world, just like his father, Maurice Jarre. 2 platinum discs awarded, one to Jean-Michel Hepp, director of TF1 varieties and organizer of the Concorde concert, the second disc awarded to Claude Brunet, director of programs for Europe 1 (1979) for their contributions to broadcasting from the Equinoxe album.
1980s
In May 1981, Les Chants Magnétiques was released, the first album in which the Fairlight CMI (first digital sampler synthesizer) was used. The same year ended two years of negotiations which allowed him to be the first Westerner to play in the People's Republic of China since the death of Mao Zedong. It takes off on October 15 from Paris for a series of five mega-concerts, two in Beijing and three in Shanghai. The Chinese public was won over, and Jean-Michel Jarre became an honorary member of the Beijing Conservatory of Music. The Chinese will give him the nickname of the great master of electronics. He left China with a sidecar, the only one to have been authorized by the government to be exported. Its success will never abate until today in this country.
In 1982, the double album: Les Concerts en Chine echoed this tour. However, some songs are reworked or composed in the studio, such as the famous Souvenir de Chine which closes the album. The song Arpeggiator will be used later in the soundtrack of the film 9 1/2 weeks.
In 1983, Jean-Michel Jarre composed background music for an Orrimbe modern art exhibition, the theme of which was supermarkets. As for the works exhibited by young painters, he decides to auction the music he composed: Music for supermarket, an album made in a single copy (the production matrix is destroyed under the supervision of a bailiff), is sold on July 6, 1983 at the Drouot hotel in Paris. The starting price is 50 francs (average price of a 33 rpm at the time). J.M. Jarre is once again in the Guinness Book for the most expensive album in the world: 69,000 francs, money intended to help young artists. The idea is to create a unique record, in the same way as a work of art, but some [Who?] Also see it as an attack on the recording industry in general, since the artist announces on RTL: piratez -I ! just before the station broadcasts its record for one and only time, on the evening of the sale.
In November of the same year, he published a compilation entitled The Essential first in England, then, in a different version in France a year and a half later. A similar version will be released in Italy under the title Synthesis and in Germany under the title Musik aus Zeit und Raum.
In November 1984, he released the album: Zoolook which took him to explore a sound universe very different from his first albums. He recorded it in New York with Marcus Miller, Laurie Anderson, Yogi Horton, Adrian Belew and Frederick Rousseau after traveling the world for 18 months recording voices in multiple languages and dialects and making it a kind of patchwork with the Fairlight. This album was voted instrumental album of the year in the United States. Jean-Michel Jarre also receives from Daniel Balavoine a Victoire de la musique for the best instrumental music album and once again the Grand Prix de l'Académie du Disque. Some songs from this album are used as credits for television programs (Zoolookologie for the Zénith program by Michel Denisot on Canal +, Ethnicolor II for Short stories on Antenne 2).
He was chosen to participate in the celebration of 150 years of Texas and 25 years of NASA in April 1986. On this occasion he composed for Ronald E. McNair, American astronaut and amateur saxophonist, a piece - baptized VIe Rendez-vous , or Last Rendez-Vous on the album - which was to become the first track played in zero gravity, aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger. The in-flight explosion of the shuttle on January 28, 1986 will unfortunately kill the seven astronauts including Ronald E. McNair. In his memory, Jean-Michel Jarre will rename this composition Ron's piece.
Despite this terrible blow, Jean-Michel Jarre continued his project which culminated in the Rendez-Vous Houston mega-concert, directed by Christian Bourret who would subsequently perform most of Jean-Michel Jarre's concerts (Lyon, Paris, Moscow, the 12 dreams of the Sun in Cairo for the transition to the year 2000, The Forbidden City in Beijing, Gdansk, etc.). It was from Houston that an assiduous collaboration began with Francis Rimbert, whom he met shortly after the Concorde concert in 1979.
His new album Rendez-vous is recorded in two months and reflects the gigantism of the concerts, awarded with a Victoire de la musique. The album was a great success and the single 4th rendezvous became an international hit and a flagship piece of his concerts. For the anecdote, the melodies of Second Rendez-Vous and 3rd Rendez-Vous come from compositions that Jean-Michel Jarre had written for Gérard Lenorman in the 1970s (respectively La belle et la bête and La mort du cygne), 5th Rendez-Vous comes from Music for Supermarkets.
HOUSTON & LYON
He therefore gave on April 5th 1986 a spectacular sound and light in the heart of Houston in front of nearly a million and a half spectators. Traffic jams block the highways that pass near the concert site, as motorists stop to follow it. Jean-Michel Jarre receives for this concert the Victoire de la musique for the best musical spectacle, while the Guinness Book formalizes the 1.3 million spectators. On October 5 of the same year, Jean-Michel Jarre returned to his hometown, capital of the Gauls, and organized his Rendez-Vous Lyon: concert for the Pope, a free concert in honor of the coming of John Paul II which takes place on the Fourvière hill, attracting 800,000 spectators.
In 1987, the Houston-Lyon album was released which traces these two concerts. For its 10 years of career, Polygram publishes a complete discography: 10th Anniversary. A biography is published by Jean-Louis Remilleux, at Olivier Orban and Jean-Michel Jarre is elected Honorary Citizen of the city of Lyon. That year, he was named European Personality of the Year by the American magazine People.
In 1988, Jean-Michel Jarre resumed his musical exploration work with Révolutions, an ethnic album reminiscent of Zoolook, which mixes voices (mainly from non-Western cultures) and electronic sounds. On October 8 and 9, he gives a concert at the London docks, Destination Docklands, in dire weather conditions, but takes advantage of the circumstances by offering the million spectators (including the Princess of Wales) two memorable concerts. Financially, the operation is also proving to be very difficult to balance. In 1989 released a compilation of songs played during the first concert in London: Jarre Live.
A project linked to the bicentenary of the French Revolution did not succeed, and it is the parade of Jean-Paul Goude which will be selected for July 14.
He played London Kid for the centenary of the Eiffel Tower in May 1989 with the leader of the Shadows, Hank Marvin, one of the idols of his youth.
Dreyfus releases a complete discography: Jean Michel Jarre - Les Years Laser. The box is only available in France and a VHS video box grouping concerts from China, Houston, Lyon ...
A Concert of images exhibition is organized from July 6 to September 17, 1989 at the Photographic Space of the City of Paris, at the Forum des Halles around the world of the musician. This exhibition gave rise to the publication of a book with a circulation of 5,020 copies at Paris Audiovisuel and the creation of Jean-Michel's longest piece of music, 70% composed by automatic composition software on Atari. This piece will be included on the album En attendant Cousteau and has been used ever since as music on hold before his concerts.
He produced the music for a report from Commandant Cousteau's Odyssey on the protected area of Palawan in the Philippines, music that has remained unpublished, but a few extracts of which have been posted on fan sites on the Internet.
This collaboration with the famous commander is reflected in 1990 by the album En attendant Cousteau, recorded in Trinidad, of which the calypso (the name of Cousteau's famous boat) is the traditional dance. The album also uses a group of steel drums on the eponymous track.
1990s
MEGA CONCERT, EUROPEAN TOUR
& OXYGENE 2
Eleven years after his first mega-concert, Jean-Michel Jarre returned to Paris on July 14, 1990 for a gigantic concert: La Défense en concert. The Guinness Book formalizes 2,500,000 spectators, another record.
A souvenir book of this concert is published by Éditions du Moniteur.
The same year, an asteroid discovered in 1942 by Louis Boyer was named “(4422) Jarre” in honor of Jean-Michel Jarre and his father.
In 1991, a concert project scheduled during the total solar eclipse at the foot of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico was canceled due to the sinking of the ship carrying the equipment from Europe.
Jean-Michel releases Images, a compilation album in which he revisits many of his successes, including pieces played only in concert (Orient Express), others very little known (Moon Machine the B side of Rendez-vous IV), or totally unreleased (Globe Trotter and Eldorado scheduled for the concert in Mexico). A VHS video with the same name is released simultaneously. It brings together the main clips of the artist who received a Video Award on this occasion.
In 1992, he would have participated in the organization of part of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Albertville. Then he was responsible for organizing Swatch the World, a sound and lights in Zermatt (Switzerland) on the occasion of the sale of the hundred millionth Swatch watch. The show takes place at the foot of the Matterhorn. We hear the title An alarm that swings, draft of the future Chronology 5. Jean-Michel then leaves for South Africa where he organizes three shows: Legend of the Lost City, on the occasion of the opening of a resort near Sun City. In the meantime, he tries to organize a show at the convention center to help underprivileged children but it will not see the light of day.
In 1993, bored with MIDI, digital and digital synthesizers, he returned in a remarkable way to the analog synthesizers which made the glory of Oxygen and Equinoxe in his new album Chronology.
Between July 28 and October 16, 1993, a European tour of Europe in concert conducted in fourteen cities in seven countries (from Brussels to Mont-Saint-Michel) attracted nearly 660,000 spectators in fifteen concerts, in partnership with the famous manufacturer of Swatch watches. He also produces several melodies for Swatch Musicall watches. The success being tarnished only by the traffic jams created by the concerts on certain sites like Le Mont-Saint-Michel, and some cancellations of dates. Despite the success of the ticketing, this tour turned into a financial pit, due in part to a shady producer in Spain, which caused the judicial liquidation of the production company CICS of which J-M Jarre is a 12% shareholder. Several companies that have been partners of Jarre for years will be drawn into this fall.
He received a Victoire de la musique for this tour, which was the occasion to reunite with his father Maurice Jarre. This tour is the occasion for the publication of a book Europe in concert by Éditions du Moniteur. In May of the same year, he was appointed Ambassador of Good Will by UNESCO, for his talent in bringing together crowds of all cultures through music, and a series of concerts around the world is planned for 1995 (declared the year of tolerance), while his music Eldorado becomes a UNESCO anthem. The concert series project did not come to fruition. At the same time, the Europe tour in concert is the subject of a VHS which covers the Barcelona concert.
On March 11, 1994, he returned to China to organize the Inauguration Concert of the Hong Kong Grand Stadium, for which he was preferred to Michael Jackson and Madonna. There, he played several pieces from his 1981 concerts, including Jonques de pêcheur au twilight with a local classical orchestra, at the request of the authorities, offering the public a show similar to those of his European tour. On April 1, he offered an original fish to listeners of the radio station Europe 2, playing an acoustic mini-concert (on the barrel organ!) Of three pieces: The Orchestra in the Rain aka Equinoxe 8 already heard under this form during his European tour, a surprising Equinoxe 3 ironically subtitled "heavy metal version", and the more classic The Last Rumba from the album Les Chants magnétiques. We regret that there is no record of the event and that it has never been repeated. On May 25, he was named Knight of the Legion of Honor. On November 14, he released his album Hong-Kong which includes extracts from his concerts in Hong Kong and in Europe.
The year 1995 is the year of the Concert for Tolerance, given on July 14 in Paris at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of UNESCO. This concert attracts 1.5 million spectators, bringing together instruments and musicians from different cultures: Arab-Andalusian orchestra, African singers, Algerian singer Khaled, lyric singer Richard Cross. The concert, introduced by an overview of the Champ de Mars by the Patrouille de France, is broadcast live on TF1, and will then be published in Laserdisc (a sort of ancestor of the DVD the size of a LP). A souvenir book of this concert is published by Éditions du Moniteur. At the same time, the Jarremix album was released, which brought together remixes of his old songs by young DJs.
In 1996, Jean-Michel Jarre opened a website in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture: A space for tolerance. Several concert projects did not come to fruition. In June, he finished a new album in his own studio in the Paris region, but its release was postponed because he had other concert plans. It was that year that he separated from Charlotte Rampling.
On February 18, 1997, the album was released: Oxygène 7-13. It is dedicated to Pierre Schaeffer, the mentor of his young years at the GRM, and returns to the sources in homage to the first analog synthesizers. Jean-Michel Jarre considers it a continuation of his first success, using twenty years later the same instruments as on Oxygène. He is embarking on a European indoor tour: on May 3, the Oxygene Tour begins in Toulon, before leaving for Northern Europe until the end of June. He returns to the mega-concert by organizing the show Moscow, en route to the 21st century to celebrate 850 years of the city. 500,000 people attend this concert at the foot of Moscow University, but more than 3 million people can see or hear it from the surroundings: a new record. The highlight of the show is a liaison with the cosmonauts aboard the Mir station. Then he resumed his tour in France, notably at the Zénith in Paris, but the concerts planned in the rest of the world were canceled one after the other. In November, the Complete Oxygene compilation is released, which brings together the two albums Oxygen and Oxygen 7-13 with a bonus consisting of a remix of the title Oxygen 12 called Oxygen in Moscow.
In April 1998, interested in new technologies and especially multimedia, he released the album: Odyssey Through O2 which has the particularity of being a CD-ROM. The audio part consists of remixes of different parts of Oxygen, while the multimedia part is very elaborate, in collaboration with a Belgian company and a French multimedia school. In July, he organized a show for the end of the FIFA World Cup and the first Electronic Night, which attracted 600,000 people. Forth Rendez-Vous is remixed again and released as a single under the title Rendez-Vous 98, as one of the official anthems of the World Cup. This is a techno concert where Jarre's hits are remixed by renowned DJs like Claude Monnet. This work, very different from the musician's usual productions, notably confuses his traditional audience. The concert recording is released on VHS only in Japan.
Part of 1999 is devoted to preparing for the transition to the year 2000. The site of the pyramids of Giza at the gates of Cairo in Egypt is chosen. The show, entitled The 12 Dreams of the Sun, takes place in two parts: the first on the night of December 31, 1999 to January 1, 2000, in front of 115,000 spectators (including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak) despite a notable fog that will give the show a special atmosphere; the second part takes place at sunrise on the morning of January 1. A souvenir book of this concert is published by Cristaly editions.
2000s
METAMORPHING
At the end of January 2000, he changed the register once again and released the album: Metamorphoses, of which almost every music is (unusually) accompanied by lyrics (with the voices of Natacha Atlas or Laurie Anderson among others). Some of these pieces were previewed during the Cairo concert. He also uses his own distorted voice using text-to-speech, as on the track Hey Gagarin. This album is opposed to the usual discourse of the musician who until then did not include words in his music: “Music is very subjective, it is made to create visions and images in your head. As soon as you start to define things visually or with words, you almost limit yourself to a more mundane image, ”he said of his best-of Images released in 1991. He also chose not to put his photo on the cover : "I prefer not to have my photo on the cover of my records". He also began a collaboration with the Apple company for which he produced a 3D show at the Apple expo in Paris.
In June 2001, he organized two concerts in Athens on the site of the Acropolis: Hymn to Akropolis, on the occasion of the Greek Cultural Olympiads. The profits are donated to an association caring for children with cancer. A souvenir book of this concert is published in Greece. He is invited to the Avignon festival where he creates a musical space exhibition with videos on HD screens where new music based on the noise of the human body accompanies visitors.
In 2002, he was the guest of the Festival du Printemps de Bourges. During a concert he takes on analog synthesizers the pieces extracted from the Aor ballet composed before Oxygène, and some new tracks, specially composed for the occasion, in a vintage creation atmosphere. This album is the subject of an exclusive digital distribution downloadable on Itunes.
On September 7, he gave a concert in Aalborg, Denmark, in a wind farm. Aero is a tribute to the wind. On this occasion, some of his hits are remixed and foreshadow a new style. In November, the album Sessions 2000 was released, in a jazz-electro style. A controversy arose between his record company and the musician. The latter believes that this album was released before he could really complete his work. He thus ends his collaboration with the man who was his first producer Francis Dreyfus and with whom he has built a substantial work since Oxygène which no other publisher had wanted ...
In September 2003, release of the album Geometry of love, designed for the VIP Room on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, in a lounge style. This album is also inspired by his relationship with actress Isabelle Adjani.
In 2004, the album AERO was released. In this album available on CD + DVD, he re-explores the songs that made his success (Oxygène 4, Equinoxe 4, etc.) in digital 5.1 sound and also records some unreleased tracks: Aero, Aerology and Aerozone. The DVD is illustrated by the only expression of the eyes of Anne Parillaud discovering the music of the album in its 5.1 sound. On October 10, he opens the Year of France in China with a concert in the Forbidden City and Tian'anmen Square, which will be the subject of a DVD. A new biography is published by Yannick Piel at Coëtquen Éditions.
After having hit the headlines during his break-up with actress Isabelle Adjani, he married Anne Parillaud on May 11, 2005. On August 26, he gave a concert on the occasion of Solidarnosc's 25th anniversary, in the shipyards of Gdańsk in Poland. He pays homage to Lech Wałęsa in his presence, as well as to Chopin and John Paul II. Several titles chosen for the concert are used in the soundtrack of the film Strike, which traces the struggle of the workers at the Gdansk shipyards. The concert is released on DVD.
In 2006, on December 16, he performed in Merzouga in Morocco. This show, entitled Water for Life, and sponsored by UNESCO, is a cry of alarm against desertification and the lack of water on the planet.
On March 26, 2007, while his fans were waiting for an album on the aviator and novelist Saint-Exupéry, Téo & Téa came out, which had thirteen songs with a very marked techno and dance floor musical style, which surprised its most loyal audience. Jarre says about this album: "I wanted to explore the universe of the meeting because the man has more and more solutions to speak but is more and more alone". The album consists of a CD and a 5.1 DVD, the latter containing the clip Téo & Téa and other bonuses.
He gives a series of show cases in several nightclubs, as well as during the Cannes film festival. He is received in several shows on television and radio to present this album.
July 2007: a concert project in a wind-themed wind farm with UNESCO in Italy near Naples for the first Powerstock festival is launched without success.
In September 2007, he re-recorded at Studio ALPHACAM the album Oxygène with the instruments of the time, but with new arrangements, as well as pieces unpublished at the time. Indeed, for the 30th anniversary of the publication of Oxygen, Jarre is resuming his greatest success and making him benefit from new digital technologies by accompanying the music with three-dimensional images. This new album called Oxygen 3D was released on November 23, 2007 by EMI, its new record company, in three different versions and boxes, so one with a 3D video version. The 3D version will be broadcast on November 22, 2007 as a preview in several 3D cinemas in Germany.
A series of concerts throughout Europe has started to present this new version to the public, initially at the Marigny theater in Paris in December 2007. These concerts contrast with the previous ones by their intimate side, centered on musical performance, and use. displayed from a collection of instruments from the 1960s and 70s, which have become rare and considered mythical.
Jean-Michel Jarre becomes a member of the sponsorship committee of the French Coordination for the Decade of the Culture of Nonviolence and Peace.
On November 17, 2008, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Russian Academy of Sciences, for "his contribution to the development of culture in the field of music and his commitment to the protection of the environment". At the end of the year, is published Jean Michel Jarre, the magician of sound and light by Michael Duguay at Coëtquen Éditions. Two of his songs were used in the Grand Theft Auto IV video game released in April 2008: Oxygene and Oxygene, Part 4.
After having crisscrossed Europe with Oxygene Tour 2008, Jarre will set off again for a series of theatrical tours across Europe. It will first be Indoors 2009 comprising about twenty concerts in Eastern and Northern Europe. In this tour, like the one that will follow in 2010, Jean-Michel Jarre applies the principles of the Oxygene Tour to his entire repertoire, giving pride of place to early synthesizers. The end of the decade thus marks for him a return to his roots and a reaffirmation of his musical identity at a time when electronic music has become very widespread.
2010s
2010 will be the year of a new world tour called 2010 in tribute to Arthur C. Clarke. In line with the 2009 tour, Jean-Michel Jarre gives around sixty concerts across Europe with appearances in the Zénith de France, and at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. This tour will extend into 2011 with around fifteen additional dates.
At the same time, Jarre is technically investing in the Jarre Technologies brand under this brand, hi-fi equipment is designed and marketed with the desire to reconcile new broadcasting technologies with a high demand for sound quality.
In November 2010, Jean-Michel Jarre announced to the press his divorce from Anne Parillaud.
On July 1, 2011, he gave a free concert in the port of Monaco to celebrate the marriage of spouses Albert II of Monaco and Charlene Wittstock. He plays his legendary songs, as well as an unreleased track on stage, Vintage, featured on the album Téo & Téa.
He was promoted to officer of the Legion of Honor on July 14, 2011.
In June 2013, a concert by Jean-Michel Jarre was announced in Carthage, Tunisia on August 12, 2013 for the International Festival of Carthage in the Roman building of the Amphitheater of Carthage. The same year he received a Steiger Award in Germany.
On October 16, 2014 he was the guest of honor at the Amsterdam Dance Event [18], and on October 23 he received the innovation prize "Innovation in Sound" by the British musical monthly Q.
On March 16, 2015 he announced the upcoming release of a new album via social networks, and presented an excerpt from it, Glory, featured in the film Interstellar Movie Time Capsule Film in collaboration with the French electronic music group, M83. On this same album, he presents tracks in collaboration with other composers of electronic music, such as the three-track EP Conquistador, in collaboration with Gesaffelstein, the two-track EP Zero Gravity in collaboration with Tangerine Dream, the EP three tracks Waching You in collaboration with Massive Attack, Stardust with trance DJ Armin Van Buuren, or even the instrumental Automatic (parts I & 2) produced in collaboration with Vince Clarke, founder of Depeche Mode and from Erasure. This album, titled Electronica 1: The Time Machine, was finally released on October 16, 2015.
On April 16, 2016, he released the single Exit, recorded as a duet with Edward Snowden. A 45 rpm single was released exclusively that same day for Record Day 2016. This track is part of the album Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise which was released in May 2016.
On May 6, 2016, he released the single What You Want, recorded as a duet with Peaches. A transparent single 45 rpm limited to 1000 copies was released that same day.
Also in 2016, for the launch of the info channel France-Info, he produced Hexagone which will serve as the credits. He could participate in the next Gorillaz album.
On September 14, 2016, the jpc.de and sounds-venlo.nl sites announced the sale of an album on December 2, 2016, it would be the third opus of Oxygen: Oxygen 14-20, for the 40th anniversary of Oxygen released December 2, 1976. September 30, Jean-Michel confirms this info with a letter published on his official website. Finally, the album is called Oxygen 3 and it will be released as a single CD / single 180g vinyl / triple CD / triple CD + triple 180g vinyl transparencies + a book on the history of Oxygen + a poster, on December 2, 2016 with Oxygen, Oxygen 7-13 (renamed Oxygen 2) and Oxygen 3.
In 2017, he participated in two tracks on the Humanz album by Gorillaz. He was also nominated for the Grammy Awards the same year alongside Daft Punk in the “dance / electronic album” category, as well as for the Victoires de la musique. From June 2016 to April 2018 as part of his two albums Electronica 1 and 2, he embarked on a world tour Electronica World Tour giving no less than 73 concerts, in Europe, Lebanon, North America (United States, Canada) , in South America (Argentina, Chile), a first for the artist after 50 years of career. A unique opportunity to combine festivals (Montreux Jazz Festival, Sonár Festival, Coachella Festival, Festival des Vieilles Charrues, Festival de Poupet), exceptional places (Arènes de Bayonne, Arènes de Nîmes, Monastery of Santo Toribio, or a concert in Massada in Israel, ancient site of the Dead Sea) and major world arenas where his biggest titles are linked to the new ones by shows of lights, lasers and LED projections.
In September 2018 a new compilation was released, entitled Planet Jarre, in 2 CD for 2 h 40 of music, featuring remixed classics, recent titles, and for the first time officially on CD the first tracks (Eros machine, La Cage ...) and unpublished. On November 16, a new unpublished album is released: Equinoxe Infinity, available in different versions (1 CD in 2 different sleeves, 1 CD + audio cassettes, vinyl…). He was promoted to Commander of the Legion of Honor on July 14, 2019.
2020s
On December 31, 2020, for New Year's Eve, he gives a free virtual concert Welcome to the Other Side, sponsored by UNESCO and organized with the agreement of the city of Paris.
Organized in virtual reality, it is staged virtually with its avatar in Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. This concert is broadcast on the VRrOOM platform, social networks and national media (BFMTV, France Inter)
