Description
Jean Michel Jarre — The Concerts in China, Disques Dreyfus / Sony Music (2 CD)
Brand new! Factory packaged! As pictured! Buy with confidence!
Product Details:
- Product Type: Audio CD (2-disc set)
- Brand / Label: Disques Dreyfus / BMG / Sony Music
- Artist: Jean Michel Jarre
- Original Release: 1982 (live); this edition ℗ 2014
- UPC: 888430247123
- Genre: Electronic
- Style: Ambient, synth, electronic instrumental
Product Features
- Format: 2 × CD
- Composed & produced by Jean Michel Jarre
- Recording: Live in China, October 1981
- Language: Instrumental
- Condition: Brand new, factory sealed
Overview
The Concerts in China captures Jean Michel Jarre's landmark 1981 tour — the first time a Western musician performed in the People's Republic of China after the Cultural Revolution. Five concerts in Beijing and Shanghai, played with a full electronic rig and a Chinese orchestra, recorded and released the following year.
What makes the set hold up is the playing. Familiar pieces from Equinoxe and Magnetic Fields get reworked live, and the new material written for the trip — "Fishing Junks at Sunset," "Souvenir of China," "Night in Shanghaï" — folds Chinese melody into Jarre's synth textures without turning into novelty. The laser harp gets its famous early outing here too.
Spread across two discs, it's a generous document of a moment that mattered, mixed cleanly so the live energy survives.
Interesting Facts
- Jarre was the first Western pop or electronic artist invited to perform in China after the Cultural Revolution, playing five shows in October 1981.
- "Laser Harp" features the instrument Jarre helped pioneer — beams of light triggering notes when interrupted by the hand.
- The new pieces composed for the tour were written to incorporate traditional Chinese scales and instrumentation alongside his synthesizers.
- The original 1982 double album was one of the earliest major live releases to document electronic music performed for a mass audience abroad.
Track Listing
CD 1
- The Overture — 4:50
- Arpegiator — 6:50
- Equinoxe Part 4 — 7:47
- Fishing Junks at Sunset — 9:45
- Band in the Rain — 1:21
- Equinoxe Part 7 — 9:53
CD 2
- Orient Express — 4:21
- Magnetic Fields Part 1 — 0:27
- Magnetic Fields Part 3 — 3:44
- Magnetic Fields Part 4 — 6:45
- Laser Harp — 3:35
- Night in Shanghaï — 7:01
- The Last Rumba — 2:11
- Magnetic Fields Part 2 — 6:18
- Souvenir of China — 3:59
Publishers
Composed and produced by Jean Michel Jarre. Released by Disques Dreyfus under licence to Sony Music Entertainment; this edition ℗ 2014.
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