50 Fun Facts About Jean-Michel Jarre

In which French city was Jean-Michel Jarre born?

Lyon. His grandfather there, an oboist and engineer, gave him his first tape recorder, which the teenage Jarre used to twist the sound of his guitar in rock bands.

Jarre's father, Maurice, was a film composer who won three Oscars for scores to films by which director?

David Lean. All three Oscars came for Lean epics, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India, yet Jean-Michel barely knew his father, who left for America when he was five.

Jarre's mother, Francette Pejot, had done what during the Second World War?

Served in the Resistance and survived a camp: she was deported to Ravensbrück in 1944. Her son later owned a glass bust of Beethoven that Hitler had commissioned and the Resistance seized.

Which science-fiction author became Jarre's friend and worked with him on a millennium concert in Okinawa?

Arthur C. Clarke. Jarre says the friendship began when he found his own name in the acknowledgements of Clarke's 2010: Odyssey Two, a novel written to the sound of his albums.

Which French abstract painter did Jarre name as an inspiration for both his music and his stage visuals?

Pierre Soulages. Jarre sold his own paintings as a young man, and he lists Soulages beside Jackson Pollock among the abstract painters who shaped how his music and his shows look.

What was Jarre's first synthesiser, installed in a makeshift studio in his kitchen?

An EMS VCS 3. Jarre said it looked like a telephone exchange, yet its swooshing effects went on to fill Oxygène, the album that made his name.

Which princess sat through wind and rain at Jarre's 1988 Destination Docklands concert in London?

Princess Diana. By Jarre's account she had promised to come to his next British show, so a box had to be built for her on the derelict waterfront, where she was soaked along with the crowd.

What does the cover of Jarre's album Oxygène show inside a peeling planet Earth?

A human skull. Michel Granger painted it for a series on the damage being done to the planet; Jarre spotted the watercolour, already titled Oxygène, in a Paris gallery and bought it.

Before Oxygène made him famous, Jarre released a cover of which synthesiser hit under a pseudonym?

Popcorn. Jarre's 1972 version went out under the names Pop Corn Orchestra and Jammie Jefferson; four years later his own tune, Oxygène (Part IV), became his signature hit.

Which album did Jarre release in 1978 as the follow-up to Oxygène?

Équinoxe. The next summer he took it to a free Bastille Day show in Paris that he had thought of as an underground project, and about a million people turned up.

Jarre's record-setting free show on Bastille Day 1979 was staged at which Paris landmark?

The Concorde. About a million people filled the square and the Champs-Élysées beyond, a crowd that entered the Guinness Book of Records; Jarre said it took him a year to get over it.

In 1981 Jarre gave five concerts in which Communist country, then barely open to Western music?

China. State radio had just started playing his albums, some of the first Western music heard there in decades, and officials cut the power to a district of Beijing so the first show could run.

Why did about half the crowd leave Jarre's first 1981 tour date early?

The city's buses stopped running at ten, so leaving early was routine. That first house was mostly soldiers and officials, so Jarre's team handed out tickets in the street for the later shows.

Which signature Jarre instrument gave its name to a track on his 1982 live double album?

The laser harp. Jarre plays it by blocking upward beams of light with his hands, and it has featured in almost every concert he has given since those 1981 shows.

Which new digital sampling instrument did Jarre pioneer on 1981's Les Chants Magnétiques?

The Fairlight CMI. It could turn any recorded noise into notes on a keyboard, which Jarre tied straight back to his student training in tape music; Peter Gabriel was a fellow early owner.

What did Jarre do with the master tapes of his 1983 album Musique pour Supermarché?

Had them destroyed. A single copy of the LP was pressed and auctioned in Paris; Jarre then let Radio Luxembourg air it once and urged listeners to tape it, saying 'Piratez-moi!'

Jarre's 1984 album Zoolook was built around what kind of sampled material?

Human voices in many languages. Jarre collected speech and song in about 25 tongues and cut the fragments into rhythms and melodies, with Laurie Anderson among the guest voices.

Jarre's 1986 Houston concert marked Texas's 150th anniversary and the 25th anniversary of what?

NASA's Johnson Space Center. Jarre turned downtown Houston's skyscrapers into giant projection screens, and well over a million people filled the parks and blocked the freeways to watch.

Which Challenger astronaut was to have played saxophone on 'Rendez-Vous VI' from orbit?

Ronald McNair. From pre-launch quarantine he took Jarre's rehearsal calls on a corridor payphone at two o'clock sharp; after the disaster the track became 'Ron's Piece', played in Houston by his friend Kirk Whalum.

Jarre's October 1986 concert in France was staged to mark a visit by which world figure?

Pope John Paul II. Jarre's home city asked him to play for the papal visit, and he met the Pope just before going on stage: 'it's like the temperature was getting higher', he recalled.

Jarre's 1988 concert Destination Docklands was staged at which east London site?

Newham council dithered until the month of the show; the stage floated on four barges and Hank Marvin guested in awful weather.

Which guitarist joined Jarre as a guest at his 1988 Destination Docklands concerts?

Hank Marvin. The Shadows guitarist played 'London Kid' in the part of the show given over to the Swinging Sixties, one chapter in Jarre's history of the area told in music and light.

Which famous undersea explorer did Jarre honour in the title of his 1990 album?

Jacques Cousteau. The album is called Waiting for Cousteau, and its long ambient title piece later turned up on the soundtrack of the explorer's own documentary about the island of Palawan.

Jarre's 1990 Bastille Day concert broke his own crowd record in which district of Paris?

La Défense. Guinness logged about 2.5 million people stretching back towards the Arc de Triomphe, while Trinidadian designer Peter Minshall's giant puppets paraded to a live steel band.

Jarre's 1997 Russian concert, reputedly attended by about 3.5 million, marked what anniversary?

Moscow's 850th birthday. The city invited him to play at the State University, and cosmonauts aboard the Mir space station joined the show by live video link.

Where did Jarre stage The Twelve Dreams of the Sun on New Year's Eve 1999?

The Egyptian desert near Giza. Built on ancient myths of the sun's journey, the show threw giant laser images onto the pyramids, and it went ahead only after a court threw out a last-minute challenge to its cost.

Which actress was Jarre's second wife, whom he met at a dinner party in Saint-Tropez in 1976?

Charlotte Rampling. Both were married to other people when a friend sat them at the same table; they wed in 1978, and Jarre has called their bond the one thing in his life he is proud of.

Which watch brand backed Europe in Concert, Jarre's first tour, in 1993?

Swatch. Jarre had already played a show for the company, and he says its boss talked him into designing its first musical alarm watch, built from only two notes.

Which Danish act joined Jarre on stage at his 2002 concert on a wind farm near Aalborg?

Safri Duo. The percussion pair played a show meant to celebrate wind power; instead 22 mm of rain turned the site into a swamp, and some fans needed six hours to get away.

Which whistleblower's voice appears on 'Exit', a track on Jarre's 2016 album Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise?

Edward Snowden. Jarre asked the Guardian's music desk how to reach him, talked with him for 90 minutes over Skype, then flew out to Russia to film him for the live show.

Jarre's 2015 collaborations album was titled Electronica 1: The what?

Time Machine. Rather than swap files, Jarre travelled to record with each guest in person, from Pete Townshend to Tangerine Dream, and the album earned him a Grammy nomination.

Which UN body made Jarre a Goodwill Ambassador, leading to his 2006 'Water for Life' concert?

UNESCO. He was appointed in 1993, and two years later played a Concert for Tolerance at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, sharing the stage with Khaled, a star of the Arab world.

In 2017 Jarre played an all-night concert beside which ancient site to campaign for saving the Dead Sea?

Masada. He played through the night at the foot of the clifftop fortress to warn that the sea below it is drying up, and used the stage to attack Donald Trump's environmental policies.

On Christmas Day 2023, Jarre played in which room of the Palace of Versailles for its 400th anniversary?

The Hall of Mirrors. Jarre wore a mixed-reality headset, so while 800 guests watched him among the mirrors, his avatar played the same set to a virtual crowd in a digital copy of the room.

Which British broadcaster used a remix of Jarre's 'Fourth Rendez-Vous' as its 1998 World Cup theme?

ITV. The remix, Rendez-Vous 98, was made with the dance act Apollo 440, who then joined Jarre on stage beneath the Eiffel Tower two days after France won the final.

What was the title of Jarre's little-known first solo album, released years before Oxygène?

Deserted Palace. Made on his very first synthesiser, it slipped out to little notice; it took a third album, recorded in his kitchen, to make him a star.

Jarre welcomed the year 2021 with a concert set inside a virtual copy of which Paris landmark?

Notre-Dame. Jarre played live from a studio near the cathedral while his avatar performed inside a digital copy of it, a free show that his team says drew some 75 million viewers.

Jarre's free open-air concert in Monaco's harbour in July 2011 celebrated what occasion?

Prince Albert's wedding. The prince and his bride, Charlene Wittstock, hosted the show themselves, throwing the harbour open so that anyone could watch free of charge.

With which band did the teenage Jarre play guitar on screen in the 1967 film Des garçons et des filles?

The Dustbins. Jarre, then 19, plays two songs with the group in Étienne Périer's film; within a year he had traded rock riffs for tape loops and electronics.

Which German composer's Cologne studio did Jarre spend time working at as a young man?

Karlheinz Stockhausen. Jarre learned his trade among the giants of abstract sound, then broke through by doing what they avoided: writing strong tunes to bridge experimental music and pop.

In 2005 Jarre marked 25 years of Poland's Solidarity movement with a concert at which site?

The Gdańsk shipyard. Lech Wałęsa asked for the show at the yard where the movement was born; about 170,000 people came, and the old ship cranes were lit up and used to swing the giant screens around.

Which record label boss agreed to release Jarre's Oxygène after others had turned it down?

Francis Dreyfus of Disques Motors. Jarre recalls rivals objecting that it had no singer and no drummer; Dreyfus pressed 50,000 copies, and hi-fi shops were soon playing it to show off their stereos.

For which French singer did Jarre write the words of the 1974 hit Les Mots bleus?

Christophe. The synthesiser pioneer started out as a pop lyricist: he wrote the words, the singer wrote the tune, and work like this paid for the home studio where Oxygène was made.

Which Chinese actress did Jarre marry in 2019?

Gong Li. She was photographed hand in hand with Jarre after meeting him at the airport for the 2019 Cannes festival, where she was being honoured, and reports of a secret wedding were confirmed within days.

Jarre's 2022 album Oxymore was released as a tribute to which French composer?

Pierre Henry. The two had planned to record together, but Henry died in 2017, so Jarre built the album around sounds the older composer had set aside for the project.

Jarre's 1997 album Oxygène 7–13 was dedicated to which late mentor?

Pierre Schaeffer. He taught Jarre that music could be built from any recorded sound, footsteps or rain as much as notes; 'my master', Jarre called him.

Jarre's 2001 album Interior Music was made to play in which audio company's stores?

Bang & Olufsen. The Danish firm had hired Jarre to design both the look and the sound of its concept store on the Champs-Élysées, and the album grew out of that job.

Which French actress, Jarre's third wife, is seen listening to the album on the 2004 AERO DVD?

Anne Parillaud. For 75 minutes the DVD shows nothing but the eyes of the Nikita star, filmed in real time as she listened to the music; she and Jarre married the following year.

In 2013 Jarre was elected president of which worldwide creators' rights body?

CISAC. The global body for authors' societies chose Jarre to follow the late Bee Gee Robin Gibb, and he used the post to urge creators to sit down with the tech giants and strike a fair deal.

Where did Jarre stage his 2006 'Water for Life' concert in Morocco?

The Erg Chebbi dunes of the Sahara. Jarre stood giant doors in the sand around the stage and lit them with images of water, a reminder in the driest of settings of how scarce it is.