This morning I read an interview with Jean Michel in my local newspaper. The interview is in Dutch but I have tried to translate the text in decend English. So perhaps there are some strange sentences in it but I am sure it is more readable than babelfish
Click
here to read the original Dutch article
Enough of electronic bombast
By Harry de Jong
Friday 6th of April 2007 – The French synthesizer virtuoso Jean Michel Jarre may be almost 60 years, he keeps up with his time. With his new album Téo & Téa he has made a surprisingly modern album full of trendy dancebeats
But the music has some depth; in the thirteen electronic tracks full of unexpected sound effects Jarre tells the story of a boy and a girl in search of true love.
"You cannot compare Téo & Téa with none of my previous albumsâ€, says Jarre. "This all has to do with the fact that it was not easy the last few years. Privately it went wrong and there were also troubles with my record company. Because of that I resigned myself with my computers to search new ways. Eventually I discovered I wanted to work once again with simple things. No synthesizer fuzz but real keyboards. At home I arranged 3 keyboards in a row and with them I made fifty demo’s. From those I eventually distilled the thirteen songs for Téo and Téa."
"During the making of the tracks I was guided by the search of every human for a partner. That still is the essence of life: no one wants to be alone. Everyone wants to have somebody to share his or her emotions. It seems people gets lonelier and lonelier. Look at the internet for example where people are desperate in search of a partner. We have more means of communication than ever but they are not bringing people closer to each other. That is the message of Téo and Téa
It is obvious Jarre looks for simplicity. After his international breakthrough in 1977 with the Oxygène album his studio projects and his concerts became more and more ambitious. The sound artist travelled the world with wagonloads of electronic devices. At the end of the seventies Jarre was admitted in The Guinness Book Of Records because 1 million people attended his concert at Place de la Concorde. In 1990 2 million people attended another concert. Also renowned are his mega concerts in China
"In all those years I never made an album or did a tour without the conviction I had to tell something new. I always tried not to repeat myself. But eventually I discovered I was busy hiding myself behind my music machinery. I now want everyone to see the person behind Jean Michel Jarre."
Before he became one of the worlds’ greatest electronic sound wizards Jean Michel Jarre was a singer in a rock band. "But I was not born to be a singer. Via music pioneer Pierre Schaeffer I discovered the World of the electronic sound collages. By the way I never expected ever to become so successful. Record company Polydor was not fond of all that instrumental hustle. It was the Dutch department that decided to take the gamble and to release the album worldwide. The outcome is known.."
"I was doing something then for which no market was in place. I considered making music like cooking. I mixed the sounds in the studio like ingredients of a meal, with surprising results. Next step was to take all of that to the stage but I realized I had to come with a special concept. Because if you want to captivate people with only computers and synthesizers you have to stage a visual spectacle."
"My shows are technical masterpieces, but I myself am not technical. I have two left hands and always had people who could accomplish exactly what I wanted. That has been my luck because I am nothing more than a pianist who cannot tune his own instruments.â€
'I owe my success to the Dutch department of record company Polydorâ€
Note : 2 points of 6
