JARRE UK.

LES PRINTEMPS DE BOURGES (AUDIO BRUNCH)

Date: Friday April 12th 2002
Location: Le Palais Jacques-Coeur, Bourges, France
Visitors: 100 (invited guests)
Cost of project: unknown
Ticket cost: free
Length of concert: 45mins approx.

In February 2002, as part of their annual Festival, the organizers of 'Le Printemps de Bourges' invited Jean Michel Jarre to take part in one of their daily events entitled 'Audio Brunch'. This event comprises of a showcase of the artist's work aswell as a relevant debate on the music performed. For this particular debate, the topic was "From Pierre Shaeffer to Techno; Inheritance or Betrayal?" in which the Belgian Techno group 'Soul Designer' would also take part, along with the moderators for the debate, who were Jean-Yves Leloup and Ariel Kyrou (author of the book 'Rebel Techno, a century of electronic music')

In what has now been dubbed as Jean Michel's "smallest concert ever", the 'Audio Brunch' concert consisted (for Jean Michel's performance) of 4 unreleased tracks. Also, Jean Michel and Francis Rimbert had stated that they would be improvising a lot during the new tracks, and had a basic structured guideline to follow for the basis of the tracks.

The first of these new tracks was 'Bleu', which was originally composed in 1969 when Jean Michel was a student for Pierre Schaeffer at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales. 'Bleu' had until now only ever been heard as part of the AOR Ballet at the Paris Opera House in 1971, and to hear this track 31 years after it was first publicly heard was a treat to the invited guests who were there during the day.

The 2nd track to be performed, entitled 'Metamorphoses', was first heard during Jean Michel's Bang & Olufsen video installation at the Global Tekno 2000 event in Avignon. This track (originally entitled 'Crazy Saturday') is more abstract/experimental than 'Bleu' in that it has leanings to Techno, but with influences to Break-beat and Drum & Bass style of music mixed with electronic. It's hard to describe because of the abstract nature of the track, but if you heard the version at Global Tekno 2000, then you will know how experimental it is!

The next 2 tracks to be performed were, in Jean Michel's own words, only composed the week before the performance. The 3rd track, dubbed 'Bourges Part 1' was more upbeat, and in a Underworld-style of Techno, with the JMJ style of Theremin playing thrown in for good measure, and breaks of Ambient style of music, and lasted for just over 11 minutes.

The 4th and final track, dubbed 'Bourges Part 2', lasted for just over 23 minutes, and was the penultimate track to be performed that afternoon. With the track feeling more worked on than the previous new track, and having an Ambient/Jazzy/Dance feel to it, it was more of a relaxing track to listen to than the previous one. Bourges Part 2 (aswell as Part 1) would have felt more at home in a nightclub though than in the Palais Jacques-Coeur, due to the nature of the tracks themselves. Bourges Part 2 as it is though would make an excellent addition to a live concert, but would more than likely have to be edited down due to the length of it.

All-in-all, Jarre's performance managed to show how his music has progressed from the Pierre Shaeffer days (Bleu) to more recent work with the new tracks he performed, and also made a good statement in how the experimental days of his music has, in a sense, influenced his more recent work which have also gained influences from techno and contemporary music in general.

You can visit the Official Website of Les Printemps de Bourges at http://www.printemps-bourges.com.
Also, don't forget to visit Jarre.net for some exclusive videos!

Musicians:

Jean Michel Jarre - EMS VCS3, Theremin, Roland XP80
Francis Rimbert - EMU XL7, Roland JP8080

Bourges Photo Gallery:

Concert photos (c) 2002 Renaud Mavre

GO BACK

Web-Master: Duncan M G Walls 'Dunkie' (ICQ: 114076586)
Assistant Web-Master: Robin Hosgood (ICQ: 29538207)