Electro pioneer Jarre finally coming to Montreal
French electronic music pioneer and composer Jarre has never played in Montreal — until now
French electronic music composer Jean-Michel Jarre’s illustrious half-century-long career has had a curious omission up until now: the 68-year-old has never played Montreal, or much of North America at all, besides most notably a celebration of 25 years of NASA in Houston, Tex., in 1986.
Jarre will finally end the drought by making his Montreal live debut at the Bell Centre May 11.
“It’s quite strange. For one reason or another it’s never happened, either because I was busy with other things or the dates weren’t right,” Jarre said by phone from Paris.
“It’s also especially odd for me because Montreal has always been a big source of inspiration, especially from a visual point of view. The city has such a strong visual arts tradition, from Norman McLaren and Robert Lepage to Cirque du Soleil and IMAX.”
The visual-heavy Electronica tour Jarre is bringing to North America has been on his mind for years, but only recently has technology caught up to his racing imagination.
“I like to call it ‘3D without the glasses,’ ” he said. “It’s a real 3D experience, created by layers of LED screens.
“Most concerts nowadays, you can go on YouTube and watch videos that more or less show you what the stage looks like. You might see some videos of this show online, but you won’t quite get the proper result. I’m not even going to release a Blu-ray or DVD, because so far we haven’t found a way to film it properly.”
After long being known for the odd one-off outdoor extravaganza capable of attracting a million fans or more (his record is 3.5 million in Moscow), Jarre is developing a fondness for the comparatively claustrophobic indoor live experience. Even in his 60s, he’s touring more than he ever has in his career.
“I’ve done a lot of outdoor shows, and I’ll keep doing them, but indoor shows are exciting to me, too, because you can control the darkness — you can control the black,” he said.
In addition to performing more, Jarre also finds himself in the midst of a rather fruitful period on the recording side.
His two Electronica albums, released in 2015 and 2016, are the product of five years of work, where each song required travelling to a different collaborator’s studio to work with them. Jarre has said in interviews he sought out artists he admired, but it’s likely that the feeling was mutual, since he wasn’t turned down by anyone he approached.
That includes artists closer to his age, like Hans Zimmer and Pete Townshend, younger countrymen such as duo Air and M83 (who did the music for Cirque du Soleil’s Volta), and even a spoken word passage from American whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Most musical collaborations nowadays don’t require being in the same room together — swapping files by email can capture the desired effect — but the typically tech-savvy Jarre was insistent on doing it in-person.
“Music is made for sharing,” he explained. “It’s not a matter of technology; it’s a matter of feelings and emotions, and those feelings are timeless.
“When you send files to people without seeing or talking to them, it feels like it’s done more for marketing reasons than for real musical reasons. What I wanted to do was share the creative process with others, which is totally different.”
Once both Electronica albums were done, Jarre returned to his four-decade long obsession: his multi-chapter new-age instrumental collection, Oxygène.
The first iteration, divided into six chapters, originally came out in 1976. This was followed by another seven chapters in 1997 and the latest Oxygène, which followed in 2016.
Every 20 years, Jarre seemingly gets the itch to continue adding parts to his most decorated piece of work.
“I’ve always been interested in sequences in movies and literature, but it doesn’t really exist in music. So when I did the first one,
I always said to myself, ‘during my life, it would be cool to try to create a sequel or two,’ ” he said.
“When I do, I apply the same approach. Like using the same actors but telling a different story.
“They all have the same DNA. The DNA of the first was to have a dark side followed by a sunny one, since it was done in the days of vinyl where one would work with two sides in mind. It was also done with minimalist equipment over six weeks. After the long, ambitious production of Electronica, I wanted to go back to that minimalist setup.
“And what I did this time was I didn’t listen to the first or second Oxygène at all. I just wanted to keep the feeling of the concept without trying to copy it. It was quite interesting to do it all in one go, basically. It was a healthy and refreshing experience for me, to go back to my roots in a sense.”