Com Indicação Ao GRAMMY Jean-Michel Jarre - Pai Da Musica Eletrônica - Prepara Turnê Nos EU

With Grammy Nomination Electronic Music Godfather Jean-Michel Jarre Preps First North American Tour

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 13: Jean-Michel Jarre attends the 'I, Daniel Blake' premiere during the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival at the Palais des Festivals on May 13, 2016 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

Now four decades into his storied career French artist Jean-Michel Jarre is considered the godfather of electronic music.  In all that time though, he has never toured North America, until this year. He’ll kick off his first ever North American tour May 9 in Toronto and end it May 27 in Los Angeles.

The tour was planned last year, but it got a tremendous boost when Jarre received a Grammy nomination in December for Best Dance Album for Electronica 1: The Time Machine, a series of collaborations he did with artists who, to him, influenced electronic music. The range of artists on that album is wide, from the Who’s Pete Townshend and Moby to Air, M83 and noted horror film director John Carpenter.

For Jarre, the nomination means more awareness for the tour. “I think that’s a sign that some people in the U.S. and younger generation also, having discovered electronic music through EDM, it’s creating a link with what electronic music is all about,” he says. “I would say that rock and roll is born in America and invaded the world. And electronic music was born in Europe and invaded the world. So there is a true link between electronic music and Europe and it’s nice to create a link with the Grammy award and the academy.”

In this day and age where collaborations are often pre-recorded between artists who never meet, instead sending files over to each other, Jarre purposely went the old-fashioned route, traveling around the world to work in person with his collaborators on both Electronica 1: The Time Machine and its sequel, Electronica 2: The Heart Of Noise. The result is a pair of albums more than four years on the making. To have his ambition and hard work rewarded with a Grammy nomination was so much sweeter because of the effort he put in.

“I’m really happy about the nomination obviously because this project is something I had in mind for quite a while and gathering around these people who have been such an inspiration to me and gathering people who have come from different generations and lead directly and indirectly to electronic music,” he says. “So I’m really happy also for all the people involved in the project.”

The news of the nomination came just as he was wrapping up the European leg of the tour. It capped off one of the most prolific years of his four decades in music. “Actually it was a very good surprise to me; it’s been a very busy, positive year for me because I released, in one year, more or less three albums, Electronica 1, Electronica 2 and Oxygene 3, and also I am very happy about the beginning of my world tour in Europe,” he says. “It’s a very special project, I’m going to bring it to the U.S. in May and it’s a mixing of the classics Oxygene, Equinox and my classics with the new Electronica albums and quite exciting type of 3D graphics. It’s something quite new.”

When Jarre and I spoke last year he discussed the idea of recreating the Electronica albums live with several of the guests on stage. He now admits that given the scope of the albums and the fact it took four years to put the albums together trying to bring everyone together on stage might be too ambitious, even for him.

“At the beginning my idea was to involve some collaborators and I realized it would become a real headache to try to make a tour with collaborators day by day,” he says. “Then I started to think about the tour with two and a half hours of music, it was quite easy for me to try to find a way to do a tour without necessarily the physical presence of the collaborators, but more, from time to time, having some collaborators joining us as guests depending on the availability.”

In addition, he has since released the third and, what he sees now, as the final chapter in his Oxygene series. So that will also be a big part of his first ever North American tour. He says the fortieth anniversary of the first Oxygene album last year spurred him to write new music.

“Last year when the record company said it was going to be the fortieth anniversary of Oxygene this year and we should think about doing a nice box, I said, ‘Wait a minute, it could be quite interesting to use this anniversary as a deadline to create the kind of final chapter of Oxygene,’” he says.

It all means that when Jarre finally hits North America this may, fans who have four decades to see him in the States and Canada will be greeted with a wealth of material.