Jean-Michel Jarre—Planet Jarre & Live in Sevilla—and me

I first remember hearing Jean-Michel Jarre's (JMJ) iconic Oxygene Part IV as the soundtrack to a UTA Airlines advertisement sometime in the late-1970s. They flew between New Caledonia, Tahiti and New Zealand so must have been advertising that. Presume my Dad got that album, it made me a firm fan of JMJ and I got his catalogue on LP, then again on CD when they arrived.

Equinoxe Part IV, from his second album, was used to introduce a local nature documentary series. TV One's 1984 'Our World' packaged local and international documentaries—with an introduction by Gael Ludlow—and a snippet of JMJ into a prime-time Sunday evening slot

The 1982 'Concerts in China' album was iconic. The rarer accompanying VHS video showed him touring a China only recently opened up to Western media. A truly pioneering view of a country soon lost in rapidly changing social and economic development. A concert and a history lesson in one.

The contrast when he returned in 2004—for the Forbidden City Concert—was staggering.

The 1986 Houston Concert was simulcast in NZ, stereo sound over FM radio in time with TV's 'Radio With Pictures' screening the video. I had an early VHS Hifi recorder to capture it, but later got the official release.

Planet Jarre—A life of digital music

This short, 17 minute, bio tells how JMJ got to those first albums and developed the massive live shows that became his trademark.

Live in Sevilla 2025

Filmed in July 2025, released in December 2025, Live in Sevilla - ARTE Concert shows (then 77-year-old) Jean-Michel Jarre still in fine form:

Setlist:

1. Les Chants Magnétiques 1
2. Epica - Oxygene
3. Oxymore
4. Sex in the Machine
5. Oxygène 2
6. Arpegiateur
7. Zoolookologie
8. Équinoxe 7
9. The Architect
10. Zero Gravity (Above & Beyond Remix)
11. Exit
12. Révolution Industrielle 2
13. Robots Don't Cry (Movement 3)
14. Herbalizer
15. Oxygène (Part 19)
16. Équinoxe 4
17. Brutalism
18. Oxygène 4
19. Epica
20. Stardust
Encore:
21. Quatrième Rendez-Vous
22. Les Chants Magnétiques 2