Booking Jean Michel Jarre

Jean Michel Jarre Biography

The producer and performer Jean Michel Jarre was born in 1948 in France. When he was still fairly young, Jean Michel’s father left the family for America, and Jean Michel spent his formative years growing up with his mother and her parents in the Lyon area of France. Jarre began studying music while attending elementary school, focusing on classical piano and then later fell in love with jazz, all the while also studying the art of painting.

As a teenager, Jean Michel began performing with a number of different bands, and he learned to record his own compositions on equipment in his own home. His earliest release was La Cage/Erosmachine in 1969, recorded completely using synthesizers, and then in 1971 he began to compose for the ballet. In 1976, Jean Michel Jarre released his first full-length solo album, Oxygene, also recorded in what had now become a full-fledged home studio. Oxygene was a critical success, but struggled commercially at first. Eventually, however, the album rose to multi-platinum status many times over, breaking records in Jarre’s home country and throughout Europe.

Jean Michel Jarre has since followed his debut with multiple highly successful albums, collectively selling more than eighty million copies. Some notable works include: Equinoxe (1978), Magnetic Fields (1982), Zoolook (1984), Rendez-Vous (1986), Waiting for Cousteau (1990), Chronologie (1993), Metamorphoses (2000), Interior Music (2001), Geometry of Love (2003), and Teo & Tea (2007.) He has also composed music for a number of films, most notably the soundtrack for 9 ½ Weeks (1981.)

Jean Michel’s recognitions for his work include the Personality of the Year Award from People Magazine in 1976; a UNESCO Goodwill Award in 1993; and multiple entries in the Guinness Book of World Records for his massive concerts, which continue to break records for their attendance. Jean Michel Jarre continues to compose and perform well into the new millennium, and appears in concert frequently throughout Europe and beyond.