Rendez-vous by Jean Michel Jarre
Rendez-Vous is an album of instrumental electronic music composed and produced by Jean Michel Jarre, and released on Disques Dreyfus, licensed to Polydor, in 1986. It is his fifth overall studio album. It sold some three million copies worldwide and remains Jarre's longest-running chart album in both the U.S. and UK, with a 20 week run in the U.S. and an impressive 38 week run in the UK. The last track on the album was supposed to have the saxophone part played in outer space by astronaut Ron McNair, but on January 28, 1986 he and the entire Space Shuttle Challenger crew were killed. 73 seconds after lift-off the shuttle disintegrated. In memory, this piece was dedicated to him. On the album the saxophone part is played by saxophonist Pierre Gossez. The album reached #9 in the UK charts and #52 in the U.S. charts.
Jean-Michel Jarre's electronic epics have always tended toward the spacey, but <i>Rendez-Vous</i> goes clear into the cosmos. Designed for play onboard space shuttle missions, the six-part suite has a weightless, soaring quality appropriate for that otherworldly setting. The final section is dedicated to Jarre's friend Ron McNair, an astronaut who died in the 1986 Challenger explosion. With a haunting saxophone solo atop a synthesised heartbeat, the piece becomes an emotional memorial and a somber conclusion to the interplanetary trip.
