Jean Michel Jarre is born on August 24th, 1948, in Lyon. He is the son of the famous soundtrack composer, Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zivago, Dead poets society).

His mother, France P?jot was member of the French Resistance during WWII, she has been deported in Ravensbruck in 1945 from where she escaped and came back in France on the roof of a train. When Jarre is 7, his parents get divorced and his father moved definitively to the States. After that, Jarre has grown up alone with his mother, living in Issy-les-Moulineaux.

In 1964, Jarre is part of his first music band, called ‘Les myst?res 4’.

In 1967, Jarre and his new band ‘The Dustbins’ are playing their own part in a movie entitled Des gar?ons et des filles by Etienne Perier, with Nicole Garcia.
The Dustbins have produced a very limited edition of their 7” - only 10 copies. This item would be a MUST for a Jarre fan, but almost impossible to find, as only owned by the members of the band.

1968, Jarre starts working with synthesizers, and enters the GRM (with Pierre Schaeffer) of Radio France. His first work, entitled Hapiness is a sad song is used as official theme for the ‘les f?tes de la jeunesse’ of Reims.

1969, Jarre composes his first 7”, La Cage / Erosmachine, that was published by Pat? Marconi in 1971, 117 copies were sold. In 1978, the title La Cage is on a compilation called Made in France.
Jarre is also the first composer to introduce electronic music into the sanctuary of the Paris Opera House, with the ballet AOR in 1971 for the show of Norbert Schumcky. AOR is presented in november 1971, for the re-opening ceremony of the Op?ra Garnier, renoved with a new painting of Chagall. Jarre has composed 5 tracks for the occasion: Aor Blue, Red, Yellow, Pink and Final.

After that, Jarre has worked 2 more times for operas, creating tracks called Labyrinthe and Dorian Gray, which were partially broadcasted on TV in 1975.
In 1972, Jarre releases his first album Deserted Palace in France (with a cover) and in the USA, without cover, as a promo for clubs. The record is distributed by Sam Fox Editions. This album is a real flop, critics even said that it is not music but noise.

At the same period, Jarre also works for commercials (Nestl?, Pepsi, Autoroute A4), creates jingles for radio and TV (’Setyricon’ or ‘Sport en f?te’, presented by Michel Drucker), and he composes the signature music for the International Festival of Magic, French TV programs and advertisings. The inedit piece is a warmup track of 15 minutes. He also composes music for the airport company Underground Musaks.

1973, Jean Michel Jarre creates the soundtrack for the movie Les granges Br?l?es, directed by Jean Chapot with Simone Signoret & Alain Delon. The first single out of the album Le juge is not a real succes, but another 7”, Zig Zag (from the album, but not in the movie) is a little hit! A lot of versions exist from that track, but the original one is sung by Jarre - Samuel Hobo (under the nickname of Foggy Joe).

Jarre has often worked under nicknames at this period: 1906, Jamie Jefferson, but also composes for others artists (Bill & Buster, Samuel Hobo, Triangle, Blue Vamp).
Jarre is also composer and lyricist of mile-stone hits in his native France for singer like Christophe, Patrick Juvet, G?rard Lenorman, Fran?oise Hardy. In this period Jarre meets Francis Dreyfus, director of Disques Motors.

January 24th 1975, Jarre is a father for the first time, with Emilie, his daughter from his first wedding.

1975, Les mots bleus with lyrics by Jarre, is a big HIT in France. Together with the illusionist Dominique Webb, Jarre sets up the show of Christophe, with the famous flying piano.
Jarre also works with G?rard Lenorman, and composes a few tracks, including La belle et la b?te and La mort du cygne, pre-version of Jarre’s 1986 track Rendez-Vous 2 and Rendez-Vous 3.

After that, Jarre decides to work in studio on his new album.
During a dinner with some friends, he meets the british actress Charlotte Rampling, who became his wife a few years later.

1976, Jean Michel Jarre composes his new album Oxyg?ne (with the help of Michel Geiss), and decides to find a producer to release it. After a long search without any success, the record is finally released by Jarre’s friend, Francis Dreyfus, who is not into electronic music, but who takes the risk and pressed 50,000 copies of the album.

Immediately, he hits the top of the charts worldwide and is awarded by the ‘Prix de l’Acad?mie Charles Cros’. This international success in French record history remains unequalled today with sales in the region of 15 million.

Shortly after his release, the single Oxygene 4 became N?1 in the chart all over the world. The track is also used as a radio theme for ‘La musique de Basket’ presented by Jean-Loup Lafont on Europe 1. The album cover, and the single one are designed by Michel Granger, who will become Jarre’s cover designer in the years to come.

Jarre & Francis Dreyfus suddenly become rich, the record label Francis Dreyfus is created. After the success of Oxygene, Jarre starts working with Juvet again, and composes for him the huge success O? sont les femmes?, but after that, he also decides to stop doing lyrics to concentrate on his own electronic projects. With the money earned with Oxygene, Jarre buys a beautiful house in Croissy and builds his own home studio, in which he starts working on his new album.

In 1977, Jarre is elected ‘man of the year’ by the US magazine ‘People’.
Jean Michel Jarre’s new album Magnetic Fields is released in 1980, it is a hit and Gold record in many European countries.

That same year he becomes the first Western musician to be invited to perform in post-Mao Red China.
Early October, Jarre arrives in China for his first ‘tour’, but not without problems - in fact, the Chinese government had only released 10 visas for Jarre and his complete team. So to make it, the team had to separate, and some of them were acting as ‘tourists’.
Once in Peking for the first concert, they had no electricity on the stage. The electricity had been repaired only 3 hours before the show, so for that concert, they were playing 100% live and without any rehearsals. It was under those conditions that ‘spooky’ Jarre arrived on stage of the Peking Mall on October 22th, 1981. We can just imagine the ambiance and the sound for this concert.

Also, tickets were sold really expensive, so, most of the audience were mostly ‘officials’ who had to respect the Chinese rules for such representation (no aplause, no noise, only respect). So after that, Jarre & Francis Dreyfus got the smart idea of buying some tickets on their own and giving them away to people in the street. So the ambiance of the following concert was completely different, and as Jarre often declared at this time in interviews: “I had never before seen people throwing other people in the air just to show how happy they were”.
His concerts in Peking and Shanghai, make history in the line of cultural events in the country and are followed by 500 million listeners and viewers on the People’s radio and television.
We can also note that during this tour, Jarre experienced with the first beta version of the famous Laser Harp.

1982, Jarre releases his first live album, a double one, The concerts in China, a live album, even if a lot of tracks have been reworked as the recordings from China were not of a good quality. A video film (directed by Andrew Paddington) of 80 minutes about the China tour is also released.

1995 Jean Michel Jarre becomes Ambassador of Good Will for Unesco.

His track Eldorado becomes the official theme for Unesco and is presented in a mini show at Unesco.
Jarre is back in Paris, this time at the foot of the Eiffel Tower for his Concert for Tolerance under the high patronage of UNESCO. The show was originally planned to be on Place des Invalides, but for security reasons, the town of Paris decides to change the location 2 weeks before the concert.

Always faithful, his audience counts 1.2 million. Khaled was on stage as a guest star to sing on Eldorado.

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