From 1974 until 1981, legendary singer and actress, Dinah Shore, had a daytime variety talk show called Dinah! One afternoon in1978, while I was home for one reason or another, my mom was watching the show and the musical guest that day was this dashing young Frenchman by the name of Jean Michel Jarre. He was discussing his music and how he made it using all these electronic instruments and then they played a promotional video for one of his compositions from his most recent album, Equinoxe. The piece was Equinoxe Part 5 and was a sweeping instrumental with a driving, pulsing rhythm underpinning some majestic synthesizer swells. The video features various shots of Jarre wandering around while this odd looking graphic character featured on the cover of his album kept popping up. These binocular viewing blue men were positioned in various odd locations and the resulting effect for the video was something rather humorous, though also a bit unsettling.
At the time, I was just starting to get into electronic music and I think I'd just picked up my first Kraftwerk LP. Jarre was a bit different, however, because there was something of a classical leaning to his music. Not too surprising, I suppose, given his father was famous film score composer, Maurice Jarre. There was a more romantic and picturesque quality to Jean Michel's music over the overtly mechanical, robotic vision of Kraftwerk. Equinoxe plays out very much like a film score, seamlessly shifting through each movement, only interrupted by the separation of sides on the album. Otherwise, every piece segues into the next with remarkable precision and fluidity. The album is a journey through an alien electronic landscape, brimming with dynamics which completely belie the assumption that electronic music was incapable of expressing such emotion and dexterity.
Unlike a lot of the music I'm prone to enjoy, this work represents something meticulously crafted and composed rather than the more spontaneous and improvised genres that normally dominate my musical preferences. The proof of this is in the fact that Jarre has replicated it, note for note, in live settings, utilizing the exact equipment employed during its original creation. It's a bit of indulgence which is very familiar to Jarre and to fans of his work. He can be, at times, rather overtly a "showman" with his live presentations, and while this often is a bit much for me, there have been times when his excesses have been constrained enough for me to find certain works endearing and enduring far beyond their genesis. This is one of his best, for my money.
