This love of some french artist in Houston felt odd when I last rewatched this, about ten years ago. Loved the enthusiasm and openness shown in this video.
The Houston concert received a lot of extra attention because Ron McNair was meant to play sax for the piece Last Rendez-Vous, which usually is presented dedicated to him as "Ron's Piece". Then Challenger blew up, and Jarre considered cancelling until people at NASA convinced him otherwise. So while I'm sure Houston would have welcomed Jarre without it, that concert got a special role as a celebration of the astronauts of Challenger.
Ron's Piece is one of my favourite pieces of music and haunting enough and sad enough on its own, but the history of it makes it even sadder.
Ah.. I had assumed that meaning behind "Ron's piece" was that Ron hailed from Houston... and that JMJ dedicated the piece to Ron because of the recent tragedy.
The last song on the Rendez-Vous album, Dernier Rendez-vous (Ron's Piece), has an interesting backstory -
"The last track on the album was originally scheduled to include a saxophone part recorded by astronaut Ron McNair on the Space Shuttle Challenger, making it the first piece of music to be recorded in space, but on 28 January 1986, 73 seconds after lift-off, the shuttle disintegrated and the entire Challenger crew were killed. The track was dedicated to McNair and the other astronauts on board Challenger.[3] On the album the saxophone part is played by saxophonist Pierre Gossez." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendez-Vous_(Jean-Michel_Jarre...
I was there and just the right age to be really excited about it. 1986 was a rough time in the Houston economy with the price of oil in the toilet, office buildings standing empty, and sad gestures like the city handing out "I'm Houston Proud!" bumper stickers trying to bolster the city's reputation in any way. This concert was an enormous free public event for the whole city, international and futuristic. He brought a Laser Harp! It was super exciting.
This is fantastic, thanks for posting it. I'd forgotten about the Rendezvous Houston concert. The studio version of Rendezvous was also my first ever CD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iVQ2o-PI9M
Fantastic collection of TV sound bites begins at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iVQ2o-PI9M&t=57
This love of some french artist in Houston felt odd when I last rewatched this, about ten years ago. Loved the enthusiasm and openness shown in this video.