Jean Michel André Jarre (born 24 August 1948) is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, synthpop, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music which feature lights, laser displays and fireworks.
Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and grandparents, and trained on the piano. From an early age he was introduced to a variety of art forms, including those of street performers, jazz musicians, and the artist Pierre Soulages. He played guitar in a band, but his musical style was perhaps most heavily influenced under the direction of Pierre Schaeffer, a pioneer of musique concrète at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales.
His first mainstream success was the 1976 album Oxygène. Recorded in a makeshift studio at his home, the album went on to sell an estimated 12 million copies. Oxygène was followed in 1978 by Équinoxe, and in 1979 Jarre performed to a record-breaking audience of more than a million people at the Place de la Concorde, a record he has since broken on three separate occasions. More albums were to follow, but his 1979 concert served as a blueprint for his future performances around the world. Several of his albums have been released to coincide with large-scale outdoor events, and he is now perhaps as well known as a performer, as he is a musician.
Jarre has sold an estimated 80 million albums and singles. He was the first Western musician to be allowed to perform in the People's Republic of China, and holds the world record for the largest ever audience at an outdoor event.
Jean Michelle Jarre je višestruko nagrađivani pionir elektronike, synthpopa i new agea, čovjek koji je istovremeno popularizirao elektronsku glazbu i dao joj dignitet klasike. Teško je navesti njegovu cjelokupnu diskografiju (snimio je brojne singlice, studijske albume, izdao je niz kompilacija, remix albuma, knjiga i ima pozamašnu videografiju). Stoga ću samo nabrojiti studijske albume:
1972 Deserted Palace 1973 Les Granges Brûlées 1976 Oxygène 1978 Équinoxe 1981 Magnetic Fields 1983 Music for Supermarkets 1984 Zoolook 1986 Rendez-Vous 1988 Revolutions 1990 Waiting for Cousteau 1993 Chronologie 1997 Oxygène 7–13 2000 Métamorphoses 2001 Interior Music 2002 Sessions 2000 2003 Geometry of Love 2007 Téo & Téa 2007 Oxygène: New Master Recording
