title: Flamenco

text: The flamenco most foreigners are familiar with is a style that was developed as a spectacle for tourists. To add variety, group dances are included and even solos are more likely to be choreographed. The frilly, voluminous spotted dresses are derived from a style of dress worn for the Sevillanas at the annual Feria in Seville.


title: Flamenco

text: In traditional flamenco, only the very young or older dancers are considered to have the emotional innocence or maturity to adequately convey the "duende" (soul) of the genre . Therefore, unlike other dance forms, where dancers turn professional through techniques early on to take advantage of youth and strength, many flamenco dancers do not hit their peak until their thirties and will continue to perform into their fifties and beyond. One artist that is considered a young master is Juan Manuel Fernandez Montoya, otherwise known as "Farruquito". At age 12, Farruquito was considered a pioneer and for "Flamenco Puro", or "Flamenco por Derecho", because of his emotional depth.


title: Flamenco

text: In Spain, regulated flamenco studies are officially taught in various music conservatories, dance conservatories and music schools in various autonomous communities.


title: Flamenco

text: Flamenco guitar studies in official educational centers began in Spain in 1988 at the hands of the great concert performer and teacher from Granada Manuel Cano Tamayo, who obtained a position as emeritus professor at the Superior Conservatory de Música Rafael Orozco from Córdoba.


title: Flamenco

text: There are specialized flamenco conservatories throughout the country, although mainly in the Andalusia region, such as the aforementioned Córdoba Conservatory, the Murcia Superior Music Conservatory or the Superior Music School of Catalonia, among others. Outside of Spain, a unique case is the Rotterdam Conservatory, in the Netherlands, which offers regulated flamenco guitar studies under the direction of maestro Paco Peña since 1985, a few years before they existed in Spain.


title: Flamenco

text: In 2018 the first university master's degree in flamenco research and analysis begins, after the previous attempts of the "Doctorate Program of Approach to Flamenco", taught by several universities such as Huelva, Seville, Cádiz and Córdoba, among others.


title: Flamenco

text: The fandango, which in the 17th century was the most widespread song and dance throughout Spain, eventually ended up generating local and regional variants, especially in the province of Huelva. In Alta Andalucía and bordering areas the fandangos were accompanied with the bandola, an instrument with which they accompanied themselves following a regular beat that allowed dancing and from whose name the style derives " abandoned ". Thus arose the fandangos of Lucena, the drones of Puente Genil, the primitive malagueñas, the rondeñas, the jaberas, the jabegotes, the verdiales, the chacarrá, the granaína, the taranto and the taranta. Due to the expansion of the Sevillanas in Baja Andalusia, the fandango gradually lost its role as a support for the dance, which allowed the singer to shine and freedom, generating a multitude of fandangos of personal creation in the 20th century. Likewise, thousands of Andalusian peasants, especially from the Eastern Andalusian provinces, emigrated to the mining sites Murcian, where the tarantos and taranta s evolved. The Tarante de Linares, evolved into the mining of the Union, the Cartagena and the Levantica. At the time of the cafés cantantes, some of these cantes were separated from the dance and acquired a free beat, which allowed the performers to show off. The great promoter of this process was Antonio Chacón, who developed precious versions of malagueñas, granainas and cantes mineros.


title: Flamenco

text: The stylization of romance and cord sheets gave rise to . The extraction of the romances from quatrains or three significant verses gave rise to the primitive tonás, the caña and the polo, which share meter and melody, but differing in their execution. The guitar accompaniment gave them a beat that made them danceable. It is believed that their origin was in Ronda, a city in Alta Andalucía close to Baja Andalucía and closely related to it, and that from there they reached the Sevillian suburb of Triana, with a great tradition of corridos, where they became the soleá. From the festive performance of corridos and soleares, the jaleos arose in Triana, who traveled to Extremadura and in Jerez and Utrera led to the bulería, from where they spread throughout Baja Andalucía, generating local variations.


title: Flamenco

text: Adolfo Salazar states that the expressive voice "ole", with which Andalusian "cantaores" and "bailaores" are encouraged, can come from the Hebrew verb "oleh" which means "to throw upwards", showing that the dervish girovaghi of Tunisia, Maghreb, also dance around to the sound of repeated "ole" or "joleh". The use of the word "arza", which is the Andalusian dialect form, of pronouncing the voice imperative "rise", with the characteristic Andalusian equalization of / l / and / r / implosives. The indiscriminate use of the voices "arza" and "ole" is frequent when it comes to "jalear", but the most evidence of the origin of this word can be from the caló: "Olá", which means "come". Likewise, in Andalusia it is known as jaleo al ojeo de hunt, that is, the act of glancing, which is "driving away the game with voices, shots, blows or noise, so that they 'get up.


title: Flamenco

text: According to the RAE dictionary (1956!) The "duende" in Andalusia is a "mysterious and ineffable charm", a charisma that the Gitanos call duende. Federico García Lorca, in his lecture "Teoría y juego del duende" confirms this ineffability of the duende by defining it with the following words from Goethe: "Mysterious power that everyone feels and that no philosopher explains". In the flamenco imaginary, the duende goes beyond technique and inspiration, in Lorca's words "To search for the duende there is no map or exercise". When a flamenco artist experiences the arrival of this mysterious charm, the expressions "have duende" or sing, play or dance "with duende" are used.


title: Flamenco

text: Along with those previously mentioned, there are many other words and expressions characteristic of the flamenco genre, such as "tablao flamenco", "flamenco spree", "third", "aflamencar", and "flamenco".


title: Mordred

text: Mordred or Modred (; Welsh: Medraut or Medrawt) is a figure who is variously portrayed in the legend of King Arthur. The earliest known mention of a possibly historical Medraut is in the Welsh chronicle "Annales Cambriae", wherein he and Arthur are ambiguously associated with the Battle of Camlann in a brief entry for the year 537. Medraut's figure seemed to have been regarded positively in the early Welsh tradition and may have been related to that of Arthur's son.


title: Mordred

text: As Modredus, Mordred was depicted as Arthur's traitorous nephew and a legitimate son of King Lot in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-historical work "Historia Regum Britanniae" which then served as the basis for the following evolution of the legend from the 12th century. Later variants most often characterised him as Arthur's villainous bastard son, born of an incestuous relationship with his half-sister, the queen of Lothian or Orkney named either Anna, Orcades, or Morgause. The accounts presented in the "Historia" and most other versions include Mordred's death at Camlann, typically in a final duel, during which he manages to mortally wound his own slayer, Arthur.


title: Mordred

text: Mordred is usually a brother or half-brother to Gawain; however, his other family relations, as well as his relationships with Arthur's wife Guinevere, vary greatly. In a popular telling originating from the French chivalric romances of the 13th century, and made prominent today through its inclusion in "Le Morte d'Arthur", Mordred is knighted by Arthur and joins the fellowship of the Round Table. In this narrative, he eventually becomes the main actor in Arthur's downfall: he helps his half-brother Agravain to expose the affair between Guinevere and Lancelot, and then takes advantage of the resulting civil war to make himself the high king of Britain.


title: Mordred

text: The name "Mordred", found as the Latinised "Modredus" in Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Historia Regum Britanniae", comes from Old Welsh "Medraut" (comparable to Old Cornish "Modred" and Old Breton "Modrot"). It may be ultimately derived from Latin "Moderātus", meaning "within bounds, observing moderation, moderate" with some influence from Latin "mors", death.


title: Mordred

text: The earliest surviving mention of Mordred (referred to as Medraut) is found in an entry for the year 537 in the chronicle "Annales Cambriae" ("The Annals of Wales"), which references his name in an association with the Battle of Camlann.


title: Mordred

text: This brief entry gives no information as to whether Mordred killed or was killed by Arthur, or even if he was fighting against him. As noted by Leslie Alcock, the reader assumes this in the light of later tradition. The "Annales" themselves were completed between 960 and 970, meaning that (although their authors likely drew from older material) they cannot be considered as a contemporary source having been compiled 400 years after the events they describe.


title: Mordred

text: Meilyr Brydydd, writing at the same time as Geoffrey of Monmouth, mentions Mordred in his lament for the death of Gruffudd ap Cynan (d. 1137). He describes Gruffudd as having "eissor Medrawd" ("the nature of Medrawd") as to have valour in battle. Similarly, Gwalchmai ap Meilyr praised Madog ap Maredudd, king of Powys (d. 1160) as having "Arthur gerdernyd, menwyd Medrawd" ("Arthur's strength, the good nature of Medrawd"). This would support the idea that early perceptions of Mordred were largely positive.


title: Mordred

text: However, Mordred's later characterisation as the king's villainous son has a precedent in the figure of Amr or Amhar, a son of Arthur's known from only two references. The more important of these, found in an appendix to the 9th-century chronicle "Historia Brittonum" ("The History of the Britons"), describes his marvelous grave beside the Herefordshire spring where he had been slain by his own father in some unchronicled tragedy. What connection exists between the stories of Amr and Mordred, if there is one, has never been satisfactorily explained.


title: Mordred

text: In Geoffrey's influential "Historia Regum Britanniae" ("The History of the Kings of Britain"), written around 1136, Modredus (Mordred) is portrayed as the nephew of and traitor to King Arthur. Geoffrey might have based his Modredus on the early 6th-century "high king" of Gwynedd, Maglocunus (Maelgwn), whom the 6th-century writer Gildas had described as an usurper, or on Mandubracius, a 1st-century BC king of the Trinovantes. The unhistorical account presented by Geoffrey narrates Arthur leaving Modredus in charge of his throne as he crossed the English Channel to wage war on Lucius Tiberius of Rome. During Arthur's absence, Modredus crowns himself king and lives in an adulterous union with Arthur's wife, Ganhumara (Guinevere). Geoffrey does not make it clear how complicit Ganhumara is with his actions, simply stating that the Queen had "broken her vows" and "about this matter... [he] prefers to say nothing." This forces Arthur to return to Britain to fight at the Battle of Camlann, where Modredus is ultimately slain. Arthur, having been gravely wounded in battle, is sent off to be healed by Morgen (Morgan) in Avalon.


title: Mordred

text: A number of Welsh sources also refer to Medraut, usually in relation to Camlann. One Welsh Triad, based on Geoffrey's "Historia", provides an account of his betrayal of Arthur; in another, he is described as the author of one of the "Three Unrestrained Ravagings of the Isle of Britain" – he came to Arthur's court at Kelliwic in Cornwall, devoured all of the food and drink, and even dragged Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere) from her throne and beat her. In another Triad, however, he is described as one of "men of such gentle, kindly, and fair words that anyone would be sorry to refuse them anything." The "Mabinogion" also describes him in the terms of courtliness, calmness and purity.


title: Mordred

text: In the early 13th century, the Old French cyclical literature of the chivalric romance genre expanded on the history of Mordred prior to the war against Arthur. In the Prose "Merlin" part of the Vulgate Cycle (in which his name is sometimes written as "Mordret"), Mordred's elder half-brother Gawain saves the infant Mordred and their mother Morgause from being taken by the Saxon king Taurus. In the revision known as the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and consequently in Thomas Malory's English compilation "Le Morte d'Arthur" ("The Death of Arthur"), Arthur is told a cryptic (and, apparently, self-fulfilling) prophecy by Merlin about a just-born child that is to be his undoing, and so he tries to avert the fate by ordering to get rid of all the May Day newborns. Whether they were just supposed to be just sent off to a distant land, or was it actually the plan for them to die at the sea all along (the texts are vague about this), the ship on which they were placed does indeed sink and the children drown. This episode (reminiscent of the Biblical Massacre of the Innocents and sometimes dubbed the "May Day massacre") leads to a war between Arthur and the furious King Lot (acting on his belief that he was biological father of Mordred), in which the latter king dies in a battle at the hands of Arthur's vassal king Pellinore, beginning a long and deadly blood feud between the two royal families (Lot's and Pellinore's). Yet, unknown to both Lot and Arthur, the baby Mordred has actually miraculously survived. He is accidentally found and rescued by a fisherman and his wife, who then raise him as their own son until he is 14. In this branch of the legend, following his early life as a commoner, the young Mordred is later reunited with his mother (this happens long after Merlin's downfall caused by the Lady of the Lake).


title: Mordred

text: Mordred becomes involved in the adventures of his brothers (having grown to become the tallest among them), first as a squire and then as a knight, as well as others such as Brunor. Eventually, Mordred joins King Arthur's elite fellowship of the Knights of the Round Table. Since the Post-Vulgate, however, he tends to be depicted as murderously violent and known for his lustful habits, including engaging in rape, as in an incident in the Post-Vulgate "Queste" when he brutally kills a maiden and is injured for this by King Bagdemagus who is then in turn mortally wounded by Gawain (there is also an attempted rape in the standalone romance "Claris et Laris"). Notably, it is Mordred who stabs in the back and kills Pellinore's son and one of the best Knights of the Round Table, Lamorak, in an unfair fight involving most of his brothers (one of whom had even murdered their own mother for being Lamorak's lover). Mordred displays better knightly values in the Vulgate Cycle (as does Gawain too in comparison to his later Post-Vulgate portrayal), where he is shown as also womanising and murderous but to a significantly lesser degree. In the Prose "Lancelot", he becomes a protege and companion of the eponymous greatest knight Lancelot. The older knight comes to the young Mordred's rescue on multiple occasions, such as helping to save his life at the Castle of the White Thorn ("Castel de la Blanche Espine"), and Mordred in turn treats the much older Lancelot as his personal hero. In this version, his turning point toward villainy happens after they meet an old hermit monk who tells his own prophecy for the two "most unfortunate knights", revealing Mordred's true parentage by Arthur and predicting Mordred's and Lancelot's respective roles in the coming ruin of Arthur's kingdom. However, the angry Mordred kills the priest before he can finish telling it. While Lancelot tells his secret lover Guinevere (but not Arthur), she refuses to believe in the story of the prophecy and does not banish Mordred. The young knight, on his part, tries to get himself killed before accepting his destiny. The Prose "Lancelot" indicates Mordred was about 22 years old at the time (two years into his knighthood).


title: Mordred

text: Mordred eventually overthrows Arthur's rule when the latter is engaged in the war against Lancelot (or during the second Roman War that followed it, depending on the version). In the Vulgate "Mort Artu", Mordred achieves his coup with the help of a forged letter supposedly sent by Arthur. The text adds that "there was much good in Mordred, and as soon as he made himself elevated go the throne, he made himself well beloved by all," and so they were "ready to die to defend [his] honor" once Arthur returned with his army. Mordred's few opponents during his brief rule included Kay, who was gravely wounded by Mordred's supporters and died after fleeing to Brittany. In the French-influenced English poem Stanzaic "Morte Arthur", a council of Britain's knights first elects Mordred for the position of regent in Arthur's absence as the most worthy candidate. As in the chronicles, the returning Arthur will go to war against King Mordred. After Mordred's supporters and foreign allies ambush and nearly destroy Arthur's veteran army landing at Dover (where Gawain is mortally wounded, fighting as Arthur's loyalist), a series of inconclusive engagements follows, until both sides agree to all meet each other at the one final battle.


title: Mordred

text: Traditions vary on Mordred's relationship to Arthur. Medraut is never considered Arthur's son in Welsh texts, only his nephew, though "The Dream of Rhonabwy" mentions that the king had been his foster father. In early literature derived from Geoffrey's "Historia", Mordred was considered the legitimate son of Arthur's sister or half-sister queen variably known as Anna or Morgause (Orcades / Morcades / Morgawse / Margawse) with her husband, Lot (Loth), the king of either Lothian or Orkney. Today, however, he is best known as Arthur's own illegitimate son by Morgause in the motif introduced in the Vulgate Cycle, in which their union happens at the time when neither of them have yet known of their blood relation.


title: Mordred

text: Gawain is Mordred's brother already in the "Historia" as well as in Layamon's "Brut". Besides him, Mordred's other brothers or half-brothers are Agravain, Gaheris, and Gareth in the later tradition derived from the French romance cycles, beginning with the prose versions of Robert de Boron's poems "Merlin" and "Perceval". In the Vulgate "Lancelot", Mordred is the youngest of the siblings who begins his knightly career as Agravain's own squire, and the two will later conspire together to reveal Lancelot's affair with Guinevere (which will result in Agravain's death by Lancelot and will lead to the civil war between Arthur's and Lancelot's faction). In stark contrast to many modern works, Mordred's only interaction with Morgan le Fay in any medieval text occurs when he and his brothers visit Morgan's castle in the Post-Vulgate "Queste", which is when they are informed about Guinevere's infidelity for Arthur (in the Vulgate version, Morgan tells her brother personally).


title: Mordred

text: The 14th-century Scottish chronicler John of Fordun claimed that Mordred was the rightful heir to the throne of Britain, as Arthur was an illegitimate child (in his account, Mordred was the legitimate son of Lot and Anna, who here is Uther's sister). This sentiment was elaborated upon by Walter Bower and by Hector Boece, who in his "Historia Gentis Scotorum" goes so far as to say Arthur and Mordred's brother Gawain were traitors and villains and Arthur usurped the throne from Mordred. According to Boece, Arthur agreed to make Mordred his heir but then, on the advice of the Britons who did not want Mordred to rule, he made Constantine his heir; this led to the war in which Arthur and Mordred die.


title: Mordred

text: In the "Historia" and certain other texts, such as the Alliterative "Morte Arthure" reimagination of the "Historia" where Mordred is portrayed sympathetically, Mordred marries Guinevere consensually after he takes the throne. However, in later writings like the Lancelot-Grail Cycle and "Le Morte d'Arthur", Guinevere is not treated as a traitor and instead she flees Mordred's proposal and hides in the Tower of London. Adultery is still tied to her role in these later romances, but Mordred has been replaced in this role by Lancelot.


title: Mordred

text: The 18th-century Welsh antiquarian Lewis Morris, based on statements made by the Scottish chronicler Boece, suggested that Medrawd had a wife named Cwyllog, daughter of Caw. Another late Welsh tradition was that Medrawd's wife was Gwenhwy(f)ach, sister of Guinevere.


title: Mordred

text: In Henry of Huntingdon's retelling of Geoffrey's "Historia", Mordred is beheaded at Camlann in a lone charge against him and his entire host by Arthur himself, who suffers many injuries in the process. In the Alliterative "Morte Arthure", Mordred first kills Gawain by his own hand in an early battle against Arthur's landing forces and then deeply grieves after him. In the Vulgate "Mort Artu" (and consequently in Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur"), the terrible final battle begins by an accident during a last-effort peace meeting between him and Arthur. In the ensuing fighting, Mordred personally slays his cousin Yvain after the latter's rescue of the unhorsed Arthur and then he decapitates the already badly wounded Sagramore. He also kills Sagramore as well as six other Round Table knights loyal to Arthur in the Post-Vulgate version, which presents this as an incredible and unprecedented feat. These and many other versions of the legend feature the motif of Arthur and Mordred striking down each other in a duel after most of the others on both sides have died. Furthermore, the Post-Vulgate says it was only the death of Sagramore, here depicted as Mordred's own foster brother, that finally motivated Arthur to kill his son immediately afterwards.


title: Mordred

text: "Le Morte d'Arthur" features the now iconic scene where the two meet on foot as Arthur charges Mordred and runs a spear through him. With the last of his strength, Mordred impales himself even further to be within striking distance, and lands a mortal blow with his sword to King Arthur's head. Malory's telling is a variant of the original account from the Vulgate "Mort Artu", in which Arthur and Mordred both charge at each other on horses three times until Arthur drives his lance through Mordred's body, but then fully withdraws it (a ray of sunlight even shines through the hole) before Mordred's sword powerfully strikes his head and they both fall from their saddles. The Alliterative "Morte Arthure" has Mordred grievously wound Arthur with the ceremonial sword Clarent, stolen for him from Arthur by his co-conspirator Guinevere, but then Arthur slashes off Mordred's sword arm and brutally skewers him up on the sword Caliburn (Excalibur). One copy of the Welsh text "Ymddiddan Arthur a'r Eryr" has the dying Arthur tell Guinevere that he struck Mordred nine times with Caledfwlch (another name variant of Excalibur).


title: Mordred

text: The Post-Vulgate retelling of "Mort Artu" deals with the aftermath of Mordred's death in more detail than the earlier works. In it, Arthur says before being taken away: "Mordred, in an evil hour did I beget you. You have ruined me and the kingdom of Logres, and you have died for it. Cursed be the hour in which you were born." One of the few survivors of Arthur's army, Bleoberis, then drags Mordred's corpse behind a horse around the battlefield of Salisbury Plain until it is torn to pieces. Later, as it had been commanded by the dying Arthur, the Archbishop of Canterbury constructs the Tower of the Dead tomb memorial, from which Bleoberis hangs Mordred's head as a warning against treason and there it then remains for centuries until it is removed by the visiting Ganelon. Conversely, Margam Abbey's chronicle "Annales de Margan" claims Arthur had been buried alongside Mordred, here described as his nephew, in another tomb purportedly exhumed in the "real Avalon" at Glastonbury Abbey.


title: Mordred

text: There have been also alternative stories of Mordred's demise. In the Italian "La Tavola Ritonda" ("The Round Table"), it is Lancelot who kills Mordred at Castle Urbano where Mordred has besieged Guinevere after Arthur's death. In "Ly Myreur des Histors" ("The Mirror of History") by Belgian writer Jean d'Outremeuse, Mordred survives the great battle and rules with the traitorous Guinevere until they are defeated and captured by Lancelot and King Carados in London. Guinevere is then executed by Lancelot and Mordred is entombed alive with her body, which he consumes before dying of starvation.


title: Mordred

text: Since Geoffrey, Mordred is often said to be succeeded by his sons. Stories always number them as two, though they are usually not named, nor is their mother.


title: Mordred

text: In Geoffrey's version, after the Battle of Camlann, Constantine is appointed Arthur's successor. However, Mordred's two sons and their Saxon allies later rise against him. After they are defeated, one of them flees to sanctuary in the Church of Amphibalus in Winchester while the other hides in a London friary. Constantine tracks them down, and kills them before the altars of their respective hiding places. This act invokes the vengeance of God, and three years later Constantine is killed by his nephew Aurelius Conanus. Geoffrey's account of the episode may be based on Constantine's murder of two "royal youths" as mentioned by Gildas. In the Alliterative "Morte Arthure", the dying Arthur personally orders Constantine to kill Mordred's infant children as Guinevere had been asked by Mordred to flee with them to Ireland. Guinevere instead returns to Caerleon without a concern for the children.


title: Mordred

text: The elder of Mordred's sons is named Melehan (evolved from Melou in Layamon's "Brut") in the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate. In a battle near Winchester, Melehan slays Lionel, brother to Bors the Younger; Bors kills Melehan, avenging his brother's death, while Lancelot kills the unnamed younger brother who tried to escape deep into a forest. In the 15th-century Spanish chivalric romance "Florambel de Lucea", the surviving Arthur is rescued by his sister Morgan in a battle against the sons of Mordred (Morderec).


title: Mordred

text: Virtually everywhere Mordred appears, his name is synonymous with treason. He appears in Dante's "Inferno" in the lowest circle of Hell, set apart for traitors: "him who, at one blow, had chest and shadow / shattered by Arthur's hand" (Canto XXXII). Mordred is especially prominent in popular modern era Arthurian literature, as well as in film, television, and comics. He has been portrayed on screen by (among others) Leonard Penn ("The Adventures of Sir Galahad", 1949), Brian Worth ("The Adventures of Sir Lancelot", 1956–1957), David Hemmings ("Camelot", 1967), Robert Addie ("Excalibur", 1981), Nickolas Grace ("Morte d'Arthur", 1984), Simon Templeman ("The Legend of Prince Valiant", 1991–1993), Jason Done ("Merlin", 1998), Craig Sheffer ("", 2000), Hans Matheson ("The Mists of Avalon", 2001), and Asa Butterfield and Alexander Vlahos ("Merlin", 2008–2012). In such modern adaptations, Morgause is often conflated with (and into) the character of Morgan le Fay, who may be Mordred's mother or alternatively his lover or wife. A few works of the Middle Ages and today, however, portray Mordred as less a traitor and more a conflicted opportunist, or even a victim of fate. Even Malory, who depicts Mordred as a villain, notes that the people rallied to him because, "with Arthur was none other life but war and strife, and with Sir Mordred was great joy and bliss."


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Super Bowl XXXI was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Green Bay Packers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1996 season. The Packers defeated the Patriots by the score of 35–21, earning their third overall Super Bowl victory, and their first since Super Bowl II. The Packers also extended their league record for the most overall NFL championships to 12. It was also the last in a run of 13 straight Super Bowl victories by the NFC over the AFC. The game was played on January 26, 1997 at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: This Super Bowl featured two clubs that had recently returned to competitiveness. After 24 mostly dismal seasons since Vince Lombardi left, the Packers' fortunes turned after head coach Mike Holmgren and quarterback Brett Favre joined the team in 1992. After four losing seasons, the Patriots' rise began in 1993 when Bill Parcells was hired as head coach, and the team drafted quarterback Drew Bledsoe. Under their respective head coaches and quarterbacks, Green Bay posted an NFC-best 13–3 regular season record in 1996, while New England advanced to their second Super Bowl after recording an 11–5 record in what would be their first of ten Super Bowl appearances under owner Robert Kraft.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The game began with the teams combining for 24 first-quarter points, the most in Super Bowl history. The Packers then scored 17 unanswered points in the second quarter, including Favre's then-Super Bowl record 81-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Antonio Freeman. In the third quarter, the Patriots cut the lead to 27–21 off of running back Curtis Martin's 18-yard rushing touchdown. But on the ensuing kickoff, Desmond Howard returned the ball a then-Super Bowl record 99 yards for a touchdown. The score proved to be the last one, as both teams' defenses took over the rest of the game. Howard became the first special teams player ever to be named Super Bowl MVP. He gained a total of 154 kickoff return yards, and also recorded a then-Super Bowl record 90 punt return yards, thus tying the then-Super Bowl records of total return yards (244) and combined net yards gained (244).


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: This was the first Super Bowl broadcast by Fox under its first contract to carry NFL games. By a large margin it was the highest-rated program aired in the network's history at the time.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: NFL owners awarded Super Bowl XXXI to New Orleans during their October 26, 1993 meeting in Chicago. This was the eighth time that New Orleans hosted the game.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: After coach Raymond Berry benched and then cut future CFL record-setting MVP and champion Doug Flutie before being fired himself in 1989, the Patriots had three more losing seasons, including a dismal 1–15 regular season record in 1990. Then, in 1993, New England turned to veteran head coach Bill Parcells to lead the team, hoping to repeat the success he had with the New York Giants.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Although the Patriots posted a 5–11 regular season record during Parcells' first year, eight of their losses were by 7 points or fewer. To Parcells' credit, much of the improvement was the result of the contributions from their draft picks that they made before the season: linebackers Willie McGinest and Chris Slade. Tight end Ben Coates also became a major contributor as a favorite target of quarterback Drew Bledsoe, who was taken with the #1 overall pick in the 1993 draft. With that improvement, the team was sold to Robert Kraft in January 1994 for a then-record price of $200 million. It was an astonishing price considering the Pats had long been considered a laughing-stock by local and national media as well as opponents, and had one of the worst stadiums in the league (Foxboro Stadium). During the losing spell they had rarely sold out, resulting in most games going without local television coverage. Sports in New England at that time centered on the beloved, successful, Celtics and Red Sox, and even Bruins, not the NFL team orphaned in remote Foxborough, Massachusetts, thirty miles outside Boston. (During an earlier run of 13 years in the 1970s and 1980s with only 1 losing season, the very competitive Patriots sold out that venue regularly.)


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The team then posted a 10–6 record in 1994 after starting the regular season at 3–6, but were eliminated by the Cleveland Browns in their first playoff game. The Krafts had also eliminated the practice of TV blackouts (and courted and nailed deals with local affiliates), and the season resulted in a resurgence of popularity in the NFL game across the region. New England then had a let down and failed to make the playoffs in 1995, a year when many organizations were coming to grips with the new salary cap put in by the NFL to improve competition in the league. In the offseason, Parcells hired his old Giants defensive coordinator, Bill Belichick, as assistant head coach and defensive backs coach. Part of the team's spotty performance that season might have been that the head coach, Parcells, and the new owner, Kraft, did not get along well. Belichick came to serve during the 1996 season as the head coach's interface with the Kraft family and the non-football operations side of the business.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: After losing their first two games in the 1996 regular season with lackluster performances, the Patriots ran through the rest of the season competitive in every game, finishing with an 11–5 record (their best in the Parcells era) and winning the AFC East. The Patriots' offense became the 7th-best unit in the league in terms of yards, and 2nd-best (behind the Packers) in points. Their pass offense, led by Bledsoe and wide receiver Terry Glenn, ranked third in the NFL. Bledsoe threw for 4,086 yards and 27 touchdowns against 15 interceptions. Glenn set a rookie record with 90 receptions, which yielded 1,132 yards and 6 touchdowns. Tight end Ben Coates was also a big contributor, catching 62 passes for 682 yards and 9 touchdowns. Wide receiver Shawn Jefferson recorded 50 receptions for 771 yards and 4 touchdowns.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Running back Curtis Martin was the focal point of the rushing attack with his 1,152 yards and 14 touchdowns on the ground, while also catching 46 passes for another 333 yards and 3 touchdowns. Pro Bowl running back Dave Meggett provided the team with a good special teams threat, gaining 1,369 yards and a touchdown returning kickoffs and punts, while also rushing for 122 yards and catching 33 passes for 292 yards.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: On defense, the team's main weapon was Pro Bowler McGinest, who recorded 49 tackles, 2 fumble recoveries, an interception which he returned 46 yards for a touchdown, and a team-leading 9.5 sacks. Linebacker Chris Slade added 7 sacks and 3 forced fumbles. New England also had a solid secondary, led by defensive backs Willie Clay (72 tackles, a fumble recovery, 4 interceptions, 50 return yards), Ty Law (56 tackles, 3 interceptions, 45 return yards, 1 touchdown), and Lawyer Milloy (54 tackles, 1 sack, 1 fumble recovery, 2 interceptions).


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: After winning Super Bowl II after the 1967 regular season, the Packers became a losing team for much of the 1970s and 1980s, only making the playoffs in 1972 and the strike-shortened 1982 season. In addition to having the reputation of being a poor team, the Packers were unable to attract good players because many did not want to play in Green Bay's cold winter climate for a small market team.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: All that changed when former San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator Mike Holmgren became the Packers head coach in 1992. During his first year, the team improved to a 9–7 regular season record, barely missing the playoffs. One of the significant players on the 1992 Packers team was second-year quarterback Brett Favre, who spent his rookie season as a third-string quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons. During a September 20, 1992 game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Favre replaced injured starter Don Majkowski and proceeded to lead the team to a comeback victory. Afterwards, Favre became the starter for the rest of that season and held that position with the Packers until his purported retirement and subsequent conditional trade to the New York Jets in 2008 (followed by a departure for Minnesota in 2009).


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Green Bay then made the playoffs in the 1993, 1994, and the 1995 seasons. As Holmgren, Favre, and the Packers continued to win, they were able to attract impact free agents like veteran defensive end Reggie White, nicknamed the "Minister of Defense", who joined the team in 1993.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: In 1996, the Packers posted an NFC-best 13–3 regular season record after winning eight of their first nine games to start the season. After losing two straight games in November, they finished off the regular season winning their remaining five games, including dominating wins over two playoff teams: the Denver Broncos, 41–6, and the Minnesota Vikings, 38–10. The Packers' defense also led the league in both fewest points and yards allowed. They allowed 210 points and also scored an NFL-best 456 points, becoming the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to score the most points in the league and allow the fewest. They set an NFL record with seven wins by at least 25 points.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Favre won the NFL Most Valuable Player Award for the second straight season after throwing for 3,899 yards and an NFC record 39 touchdown passes during the 1996 regular season, with only 13 interceptions. His 39 touchdown passes was the third-highest total in league history at that time. Favre was also a good runner, ranking third on the team with 136 rushing yards and scoring 2 touchdowns.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The Packers had another valuable asset in game-breaking kick returner Desmond Howard. The former Heisman Trophy winner's NFL career as a wide receiver was widely viewed as a disappointment up until this point, recording just 92 receptions in his first four NFL seasons. After joining Green Bay before the 1996 season, the team used him as a kick returner. Howard excelled in this role and ended up setting an NFL record with 875 punt return yards, while also leading the league in yards per return (15.1) and punt return touchdowns (3). He also caught 13 passes for 95 yards and added another 460 yards returning kickoffs.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Green Bay also had a number of offensive weapons. Wide receiver Antonio Freeman led the team with 933 yards and 9 touchdowns. Multi-talented veteran wide receiver Don Beebe was also a constant breakaway threat, catching 39 passes for 606 yards and adding another 403 yards and a touchdown returning kickoffs. Beebe was a member of the Buffalo Bills during their four Super Bowl losses, and was thus extremely eager for another shot at a Super Bowl win. Late in the season, after a string of injuries sent star receiver Robert Brooks out for the season and caused Freeman to miss four games, Green Bay made another big addition to their receiving corps by signing Andre Rison, who had been cut by the Jacksonville Jaguars, and finished the season with 47 receptions for 593 yards and 3 touchdowns. The Packers also had two outstanding tight ends: Pro Bowler Keith Jackson recorded 40 catches for 504 yards and 10 touchdowns, and Mark Chmura had 28 receptions for 370 yards.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Although Green Bay's running game did not have any standout backs or Pro Bowlers, running backs Dorsey Levens and Edgar Bennett, and fullback William Henderson were all very good at blocking, running, and receiving. Bennett was the team's leading rusher with 899 yards, while also catching 31 passes for 176 yards and scored 3 touchdowns. Levens rushed for 566 yards, caught 31 passes for 226 yards, returned 5 kickoffs for 84 yards, and scored 10 touchdowns. Henderson had 130 rushing yards, caught 27 passes for 203 yards, and returned 2 kickoffs for 38 yards. Up front, Pro Bowl center Frank Winters anchored the offensive line, along with guard Adam Timmerman.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: On defense, White continued to be a weapon, recording 29 tackles, 3 fumble recoveries, and led the team with 8.5 sacks. Defensive tackle Santana Dotson was also a big asset, recording 5.5 sacks and a fumble recovery. In the secondary, the team was led by safety Eugene Robinson, who recorded 55 tackles, 6 interceptions, and 107 return yards. Defensive back LeRoy Butler was also a major force, recording 65 tackles, 6.5 sacks, 2 fumble recoveries, and 5 interceptions for 149 return yards and a touchdown.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Aided by Martin's 166 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns, including a 78-yard touchdown run in the 2nd quarter, the Patriots first eliminated the defending AFC champion Pittsburgh Steelers, 28–3. New England gained a total of 346 yards in the game, while limiting Steelers quarterback Mike Tomczak to just 110 passing yards with no touchdowns and 2 interceptions.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The Patriots then defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 20–6 in the AFC Championship Game. The Jaguars, an expansion team in 1995, advanced after upsetting the AFC's top seed, the Denver Broncos. However, New England took advantage of several key Jacksonville miscues in a game dominated by defense. A bad snap allowed Patriots defensive back Larry Whigham to tackle Jaguars punter Bryan Barker at the Jacksonville 4-yard line, setting up Martin's 1-yard touchdown run a few plays later. The Jaguars scored a field goal in the 2nd quarter, but Jacksonville punt returner Chris Hudson's fumble set up Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri's 29-yard field goal. Eventually, the teams exchanged field goals, and the Patriots led 13–6 going into the 4th quarter. With under 4 minutes left in the game, the Jaguars reached the New England 5-yard line, but Patriots safety Willie Clay intercepted a pass in the end zone. After New England was forced to punt, cornerback Otis Smith recovered a fumble from Jaguars running back James Stewart and returned it 47 yards for a touchdown to put the game away.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Meanwhile, the Packers first eliminated the San Francisco 49ers, 35–14. Green Bay's defense and special teams dominated the game, forcing 5 turnovers, and helped the team score 35 points even though Favre was limited to just 79 passing yards. San Francisco starting quarterback Steve Young, who was still suffering from a rib injury sustained during the 49ers' 14–0 playoff win over the Philadelphia Eagles the previous week, had to leave the game in the 1st quarter. Howard opened up the scoring by returning a punt 71 yards for a touchdown. Later, he returned a punt 46 yards to set up Favre's 4-yard touchdown pass to Andre Rison. By the time the first half ended, Green Bay had a commanding 21–7 lead. San Francisco cut their deficit to 7 points with a 3rd-quarter touchdown, but the Packers responded by driving 72 yards to score a touchdown of their own, in which a fumble by Bennett was recovered in the end zone by Freeman. Green Bay then put the game away with an 11-yard touchdown run by Bennett.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Green Bay then defeated the Carolina Panthers 30–13 in the NFC Championship Game. Like the Jaguars, the Panthers were a 1995 expansion team that advanced to the conference title game. But unlike Jacksonville, Carolina came into the contest as the NFC's #2 seed and had eliminated the defending Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys, 26–17. In the NFC Championship Game, Carolina scored first with a 3-yard touchdown reception by Howard Griffith, but Green Bay scored on two touchdown passes by Favre and a field goal in the 2nd quarter to take a 17–10 halftime lead. The Packers then dominated the second half, only allowing one more field goal from the Panthers. Levens recorded 5 catches for 117 yards and a touchdown, along with 88 rushing yards. Bennett rushed for 99 yards and a touchdown. Favre threw for 292 yards and 2 touchdowns with 1 interception. Kicker Chris Jacke scored three field goals. By advancing to the Super Bowl, the Packers broke a streak since Super Bowl XXVI that had either the Dallas Cowboys or the San Francisco 49ers representing the NFC in the championship game. It also marked the Packers' first Super Bowl appearance since winning the first two to culminate their dynasty under Lombardi and Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The Packers were favored to win the game by 14 points, largely because many thought the Patriots were a Cinderella team, and because of the recent dominance of the NFC in Super Bowl games.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The signing of Andre Rison by Green Bay late in the season had been a surprise to the league. Rison had been released by two teams over the previous two years and was known as a serious disciplinary problem for skipping team meetings. The previous year, the Packers had tried to sign Rison and Favre had spoken positively when a deal was not reached, stating "We saved a lot of money, and a lot of heartache because he was a problem internally." Rison later replied that if he were a defensive player, "I'd try to break his face." He also added "maybe a couple of years ago, I would have said he's a hillbilly jealous of a black man making money. But now I'm at this age. No comment."


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Much of the pregame hype surrounded the conflict between Parcells and Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Kraft took control of the team after Parcells was hired, and the two of them had different ideas on how to run the organization. Six days before the Super Bowl, in an article by Will McDonough, "The Boston Globe" reported Parcells would leave the Patriots after the Super Bowl to become the coach of the New York Jets. The book "Patriot Reign" alleges the Patriots have cell phone records showing Parcells was in constant contact with the Jets during the week. Then-Patriots defensive coordinator (and now head coach) Bill Belichick is quoted as saying Parcells' plans to leave for the Jets were a distraction, "Yeah, I'd say it was a little bit of a distraction all the way around. I can tell you first-hand, there was a lot of stuff going on prior to the game. I mean, him talking to other teams. He was trying to make up his mind about what he was going to do. Which, honestly, I felt [was] totally inappropriate. How many chances do you get to play for the Super Bowl? Tell them to get back to you in a couple of days. I'm not saying it was disrespectful to me, but it was in terms of the overall commitment to the team." Parcells even refused to travel back with the rest of the Patriots after the game, and was eventually hired by the rival Jets.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: To honor former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, who died on December 6, 1996, each player wore a special helmet decal with Rozelle's signature, "Pete", printed across the NFL logo. Tributes to Rozelle were also published in the game program.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Coincidentally, the first Super Bowl appearance for the Patriots was also in the Superdome and against an NFC Central team. In Super Bowl XX, the Patriots lost to the Chicago Bears, whose rivalry with the Packers is said to be the NFL's oldest.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: As the designated home team, the Packers wore their home green uniforms and gold pants, while the Patriots went with their road white uniforms and silver pants.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The game was the first Super Bowl to be televised in the United States by the Fox network. Play-by-play announcer Pat Summerall and color commentator John Madden, both previously of CBS, called the game. James Brown hosted all the events with help from his fellow "Fox NFL Sunday" cast members Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, and Ronnie Lott.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: This was the first of three Super Bowls to be called by Summerall and Madden while with Fox (Super Bowls XXXIII and XXXVI being the others).


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Starting with this game, through Super Bowl XXXVII, the Super Bowl logo was painted at the 50-yard line, and the teams' helmets were placed on the 30-yard lines. In the past Super Bowl games since Super Bowl VI, the NFL logo was painted on the 50-yard line, except for Super Bowls XXV and XXIX. The Super Bowl XXV logo was painted at midfield, and the NFL 75th Anniversary logo was painted at midfield in Super Bowl XXIX. The league started to put the NFL logo at midfield again for Super Bowl XXXVIII.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The telecast ended up being the highest-rated program in the history of the then ten-year-old Fox network, and it currently ties Super Bowl XLII for the highest-rated program in the entire history of the network. Afterwards, Fox televised "The X-Files" episode "Leonard Betts". Fox's broadcast was also the first Super Bowl to have a constant, live-updating graphic for the score, time and down & distance. The FoxBox was used also in Super Bowl XXXIII, and the graphic positioned over live action has become the norm in virtually all sports broadcasts at the national and regional production levels.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: With the Packers' win, they became the third team to win Super Bowls on three networks (I-broadcast on both CBS and NBC, II-CBS, and Fox). They also became the first team to win three Super Bowls with Fox as one of the networks to televise their win. The previous seven games played in domes were all won by the designated road team, which wore white. The game was rematched on October 27, 1997, as a near-national telecast on ABC's "Monday Night Football", the only time ABC aired a rematch of the previous season's Super Bowl.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The pregame show featured Los del Río, who performed their multi-platinum smash hit "Macarena", the dance craze that became a worldwide summer hit in 1996. Country singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter and Cajun musical group BeauSoleil also appeared singing Carpenter's hit "Down at the Twist and Shout".


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: R&B singer Luther Vandross later sang the national anthem, and Miss Louisiana 1996 Erika Schwarz Wright performed sign language for the national anthem.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The coin toss ceremony featured the winning head coaches of the previous Super Bowl games played in New Orleans: Hank Stram (Super Bowl IV), Tom Landry (Super Bowl VI, Super Bowl XII), Chuck Noll (Super Bowl IX), Tom Flores (Super Bowl XV), Mike Ditka (Super Bowl XX), and George Seifert (Super Bowl XXIV). Hank Stram was given the honor of doing the coin toss.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The halftime show was titled "Blues Brothers Bash" and featured actors Dan Aykroyd, John Goodman, and Jim Belushi as The Blues Brothers. The show highlighted blues music and also had performances by the rock band ZZ Top and singer James Brown.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The Packers outgained the Patriots 323 yards to 257 and intercepted quarterback Drew Bledsoe four times. Packers defensive end Reggie White set a Super Bowl record with three sacks, including back to back takedowns in the 3rd quarter.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Green Bay forced New England to punt on the opening possession of the game and started their first drive with great field position after receiver Desmond Howard returned the ball 32 yards to the Packers 46-yard line. Green Bay then opened up the scoring with Brett Favre's 54-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Andre Rison on their second offensive play of the game. Then on the Patriots' ensuing drive, Packers defensive back Doug Evans intercepted a pass from Bledsoe at the Patriots 28-yard line. On the first play after the turnover, Patriots lineman Ferric Collons sacked Favre for a 10-yard loss, but running back Dorsey Levens rushed for 4 yards and caught a pass for 14 over the next two plays, setting up Chris Jacke's 37-yard field goal to make the score 10–0.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: New England stormed back, scoring touchdowns on each of their next two possessions. On the second play of the Patriots' ensuing drive, Bledsoe completed a 32-yard screen pass to fullback Keith Byars and followed it up with a "dump-off" pass to running back Curtis Martin, who caught the ball near the line of scrimmage and ran 20 yards to the Packers 27-yard line before being tackled. Bledsoe then threw three straight incompletions, but on the third one, Packers cornerback Craig Newsome was called for a 26-yard pass interference penalty, giving New England a first down at the 1-yard line. On the next play, Bledsoe completed a 1-yard touchdown pass to Byars to cut his team's deficit to 10–7.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: New England's defense then forced the Packers to punt from their own 17-yard line after a three-and-out, giving the Patriots the ball back after running back Dave Meggett received Craig Hentrich's 39-yard punt at the Patriots 43-yard line. After a 7-yard reception and a 2-yard run by Martin on their first two plays, Bledsoe completed a 44-yard pass to wide receiver Terry Glenn to advance to the Green Bay 4-yard line. From there, tight end Ben Coates' 4-yard touchdown reception gave New England a 14–10 lead. The Packers and Patriots combined for 24 points, the most ever scored in the 1st quarter of a Super Bowl. The Patriots became the first team in Super Bowl history to score 14 points in the first quarter and lose the game.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: New England's lead was short-lived. After both teams exchanged punts, Favre threw a Super Bowl-record 81-yard touchdown pass to receiver Antonio Freeman, putting the Packers back in the lead, 17–14. Then on third down of the ensuing Patriots drive, strong safety LeRoy Butler powered through Meggett's block attempt and managed to drag Bledsoe down with one arm for a 9-yard sack, forcing a Tom Tupa punt that Howard returned 34 yards to the Patriots 47-yard line. The Packers then drove to the 14-yard line, featuring a 23-yard reception by Rison and a 12-yard run by Levens, to score on Jacke's 31-yard field goal to increase their lead to 20–14.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Meggett returned the ensuing kickoff 21 yards to the Patriots 25-yard line. On the first play of the drive, Bledsoe completed a 19-yard pass to Coates to advance to their own 44-yard line. But two plays later, Packers free safety Mike Prior intercepted a long pass that was intended for wide receiver Shawn Jefferson, and returned it 8 yards to the Packers 26-yard line. After the turnover, Favre completed a 22-yard pass to Freeman, and Levens rushed four times for 31 yards on a 9-play, 74-yard drive that took 5:59 minutes off the clock and ended with Favre's 2-yard touchdown run to give Green Bay a 27–14 lead with just 1:11 left in the half.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: After a 24-yard kickoff return by Meggett, Bledsoe completed an 18-yard pass to Coates, and followed it up with a 10-yard pass to Glenn. Then after a 1-yard run by Meggett on the next play, Bledsoe completed a 7-yard pass to receiver Vincent Brisby to bring up 3rd down and 2 yards to go from the Packers 42-yard line. However, Green Bay's defense forced two incompletions from Bledsoe, causing the Patriots to turn the ball over on downs with just 19 seconds left before halftime. The Packers tried to get into scoring range by calling a pass on the next play, but linebacker Willie McGinest sacked Favre, and the score remained 27–14 at halftime.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Howard returned the second half kickoff 23 yards to the Green Bay 25-yard line. From there, Favre led the Packers all the way to the New England 37, but the Patriots made a key defensive stand, stopping Levens for no gain on 3rd down and 1, and then tackling him again for a 7-yard loss on 4th down. Then after driving to the Packers 41-yard line, New England was forced to punt, but they managed to pin Green Bay deep in their own territory when Howard made a fair catch of Tupa's 29-yard punt at the 12-yard line. On the ensuing drive, a 7-yard sack by Patriots cornerback Otis Smith helped the New England defense force the Packers to punt, and the Patriots got the ball back with great field position after Meggett returned Craig Hentrich's 48-yard punt 6 yards to the New England 47-yard line.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Taking advantage of their excellent starting field position, New England drove 53 yards in 7 plays and scored on an 18-yard touchdown run by Martin to cut the Packers' lead to 27–21. But on the ensuing kickoff, Howard returned the ball 99 yards for a touchdown – the longest play in Super Bowl history (later broken in Super Bowl XLIII, and broken again in Super Bowl XLVII). Favre then completed a pass to tight end Mark Chmura for a successful two-point conversion, giving the Packers a 35–21 lead.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The score proved to be the last one of the contest, as the defenses of both teams took over for the rest of the game. The Patriots limited the Packers to three punts and a missed 47-yard field goal attempt by Jacke. Green Bay did even better, not allowing New England to advance past their own 32-yard line. Furthermore, White sacked Bledsoe on back to back plays on the Patriots' first drive after Howard's game-clinching touchdown return. White then recorded a third sack late in the 4th quarter. Bledsoe was also intercepted twice in the final period (one by Newsome and the other one by linebacker Brian Williams).


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: After the game, Favre reflected on his long road to becoming a Super Bowl champion, which included the death of his friend Mark Harvy in a car accident during the season. "Through everything I really believed I'd be here today. Right here in this stairwell, talking about being world champions. My best friend's gone forever. Trouble never seems to be far away, and the future won't be all rosy, but they can't take this away from me. Thirty years from now, the kids will be getting ready for Super Bowl LXI, and NFL Films will drag out Steve Sabol — he'll be around 102 then — and he'll talk about how Brett Favre fought through such adversity. And there will be other players and coaches. But I know this: We etched our place in history today."


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Freeman was the top receiver of the game, finishing with 105 receiving yards and a touchdown on only 3 receptions. Dorsey Levens was the game's leading rusher with 61 rushing yards, and caught 3 passes for 23 yards. Favre completed 14 out of 27 passes for 246 yards and 2 touchdowns, and had 12 rushing yards and another touchdown on 4 carries. Favre became the first Super Bowl-winning quarterback to have at least three touchdowns (Favre had 2 throwing, 1 rushing) and not be named Super Bowl MVP.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Bledsoe finished the game with 11 more pass completions (25) than Favre, but only 7 more total passing yards (253). His four interceptions tied a Super Bowl record. Martin was limited to just 41 rushing yards and 1 touchdown on 11 carries, but he also caught 3 passes for 28 yards. Meggett recorded 155 combined net yards (117 kick return, 30 punt return, 8 receiving). Coates was the Patriots' leading receiver with 6 catches for 67 yards and a touchdown.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: This was the first Super Bowl played at the Superdome in which the home (and losing) team's point total was something other than 10. The Dallas Cowboys beat the Denver Broncos 27–10 in Super Bowl XII, the Oakland Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 27–10 in Super Bowl XV, the Chicago Bears beat the New England Patriots 46–10 in Super Bowl XX, and the San Francisco 49ers beat the Denver Broncos 55–10 in Super Bowl XXIV.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The following records were set in Super Bowl XXXI, according to the official NFL.com boxscore, the 2016 NFL Record & Fact Book and the ProFootball reference.com game summary. <br>Some records have to meet NFL minimum number of attempts to be recognized. The minimums are shown (in parenthesis).


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: The Packers returned to the Super Bowl again the following year but were then outfought by the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXII in San Diego, marking the first of their two consecutive Super Bowls to conclude the Hall of Fame career of John Elway. In 2007, the Packers were favored to return to the Super Bowl to face the Patriots again but were upset at Lambeau Field by the eventual champion New York Giants, who went on to knock off the previously undefeated Patriots. It proved to be Favre's final game as a Packer, but three years later, Favre's successor Aaron Rodgers helped drive the Packers to regain the Vince Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl XLV in Dallas against the Pittsburgh Steelers. This was the Packers’ last win in the Superdome for 23 years; their next win wouldn't come until Week 3 of the 2020 season.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Five years later, Belichick had returned to the Patriots and was in his second season as head coach, while Milloy, Law, Vinatieri, McGinest, Tedy Bruschi and Otis Smith, who all played in this Super Bowl, were still with the team when they made an unexpected return to the Superdome to face the "Greatest Show on Turf" St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. Bledsoe was also still there, but was now backing up Tom Brady, who was then just a second-year player who had thrown only three passes in his rookie season but had gone 11-3 as a starter to finish the regular season after Bledsoe had been knocked out in Week 2 against the Jets. (Bledsoe had replaced Brady after Pittsburgh's Lee Flowers knocked Brady out of the AFC Championship Game and proceeded to throw for a touchdown.) Law gave the Patriots a lead with an interception return for a touchdown off St. Louis' MVP Kurt Warner, and eventually, Vinatieri's 48-yard field goal as time expired following a clutch Brady drive – the first time a Super Bowl was won with a score on the final play – gave the Patriots a 20–17 upset victory and their first Super Bowl on their third visit to the Superdome on the NFL's ultimate stage. It also marked the birth of the Patriots' dynasty as the first of six Super Bowl victories in nine appearances under Brady and Belichick.


title: Super Bowl XXXI

text: Jeff Bergman and his father, Jerry Bergman Sr., became the first father-son combination to officiate Super Bowls. Jerry was the head linesman (now down judge) for four Super Bowls (XIII, XVI, XVIII, XXIII).


title: Gilles de Rais

text: Gilles de Rais (c. 1405 – 26 October 1440), Baron de Rais (), was a knight and lord from Brittany, Anjou and Poitou, a leader in the French army, and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc. He is best known for his reputation and later conviction as a confessed serial killer of children.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: A member of the House of Montmorency-Laval, Gilles de Rais grew up under the tutelage of his maternal grandfather and increased his fortune by marriage. He earned the favour of the Duke of Brittany and was admitted to the French court. From 1427 to 1435, Rais served as a commander in the French army, and fought alongside Joan of Arc against the English and their Burgundian allies during the Hundred Years' War, for which he was appointed Marshal of France.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: In 1434 or 1435, he retired from military life, depleted his wealth by staging an extravagant theatrical spectacle of his own composition, and was accused of dabbling in the occult. After 1432, Rais was accused of engaging in a series of child murders, with victims possibly numbering in the hundreds. The killings came to an end in 1440, when a violent dispute with a clergyman led to an ecclesiastical investigation that brought the crimes to light, and attributed them to Rais. At his trial, the parents of missing children in the surrounding area and Rais's own confederates in crime testified against him. He was condemned to death and hanged at Nantes on 26 October 1440.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: Rais is sometimes believed to be the inspiration for the French folktale "Bluebeard" ("Barbe bleue"), but this assumption is controversial.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: It is not known when Gilles de Rais was born, perhaps in late 1405 to Guy II de Montmorency-Laval and Marie de Craon in the family castle at Champtocé-sur-Loire. Following the deaths of his father and mother in 1415, Gilles and his younger brother René de La Suze were placed under the tutelage of Jean de Craon, their maternal grandfather. Craon was a schemer who attempted to arrange the marriage of 12-year-old Gilles to four-year-old Jeanne Paynel, one of the richest heiresses in Normandy; when the plan failed, he attempted unsuccessfully to unite the boy with Béatrice de Rohan, the niece to the Duke of Brittany.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: On 30 November 1420, Craon did substantially increase his grandson's fortune by marrying him to Catherine de Thouars of Brittany, heiress of La Vendée and Poitou. Their only child, Marie, was born in 1433 or 1434.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: In the decades following the Breton War of Succession (1341–64), the defeated faction led by Olivier de Blois, Count of Penthièvre, continued to plot against the Dukes of the House of Montfort. The Blois faction, which refused to relinquish its claim to rule over the Duchy of Brittany, had taken Duke John VI prisoner in violation of the Treaty of Guérande (1365). Jean de Craon took the side of the House of Montfort. After the Duke's release, Jean de Craon and his grandson Gilles de Rais were rewarded for their "good and notable services" with generous land grants that were converted to monetary gifts.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: In 1425, Rais appeared in the entourage of king Charles VII at Saumur, but he might have been introduced to the royal court before this date. At the battle for the Château du Lude, he killed or took prisoner the English captain Blackburn.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: From 1427 to 1435, Rais served as a commander in the Royal Army, distinguishing himself for bravery on the battlefield during the renewal of the Hundred Years' War. In 1429, he fought alongside Joan of Arc in some of the campaigns waged against the English and their Burgundian allies. He was present with Joan when the English Siege of Orléans was lifted.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: On 17 July 1429, Rais was one of four lords chosen for the honour of bringing the Holy Ampulla from the Abbey of Saint-Remy to Notre-Dame de Reims for the consecration of Charles VII as King of France. On the same day, he was officially created a Marshal of France.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: Following the Siege of Orléans, Rais was granted the right to add a border of the royal arms, the fleur-de-lys on an azure ground, to his own. The letters patent authorizing the display cited his "high and commendable services", the "great perils and dangers" he had confronted, and "many other brave feats". In May 1431, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in Rouen.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: Jean de Craon, Rais' grandfather, died on November 1432, and, in a public gesture to mark his displeasure with Rais' reckless spending of a carefully amassed fortune, left his sword and his breastplate to Rais' younger brother René de La Suze.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: In either 1434 or 1435, Rais gradually withdrew from military and public life to pursue his own interests: the construction of a splendid Chapel of the Holy Innocents (where he officiated in robes of his own design), and the production of a theatrical spectacle, "Le Mystère du Siège d'Orléans". The play consisted of more than 20,000 lines of verse, requiring 140 speaking parts and 500 extras. Rais was almost bankrupt at the time of the production and began selling property as early as 1432 to support his extravagant lifestyle. By March 1433, he had sold all his estates in Poitou (except his wife's) and all his property in Maine. Only two castles in Anjou, Champtocé-sur-Loire and Ingrandes, remained in his possession. Half the total sales and mortgages was spent on the production of his play. It was first performed in Orléans on 8 May 1435. Six hundred costumes were constructed, worn once, discarded, and constructed afresh for subsequent performances. Unlimited supplies of food and drink were made available to spectators at Rais' expense.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: In June 1435, family members gathered to put a curb on Rais. They appealed to Pope Eugene IV to disavow the Chapel of the Holy Innocents (he refused) and carried their concerns to the king. On 2 July 1435, a royal edict was proclaimed in Orléans, Tours, Angers, Pouzauges and Champtocé-sur-Loire denouncing Rais as a spendthrift and forbidding him to sell any more property. No subject of Charles VII was allowed to enter into any contract with him, and those in command of his castles were forbidden to dispose of them. Rais' credit fell immediately and his creditors pressed upon him. He borrowed heavily, using his "objets d'art", manuscripts, books and clothing as security. When he left Orléans in late August or early September 1435, the town was littered with precious objects he was forced to leave behind. The edict did not apply to Brittany, and the family was unable to persuade the Duchy of Brittany to enforce it.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: In 1438, according to testimony at his trial by the priest Eustache Blanchet and the cleric François Prelati, Rais sent out Blanchet to seek individuals who knew alchemy and demon summoning. Blanchet contacted Prelati in Florence and persuaded him to take service with his master. Having reviewed the magical books of Prelati and a traveling Breton, Rais chose to initiate experiments, the first in the lower hall of his castle at Tiffauges, attempting to summon a demon named Barron. Rais provided a contract with the demon for riches that Prelati was to give to the demon later.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: As no demon manifested after three tries, the Marshal grew frustrated with the lack of results. Prelati said Barron was angry and required the offering of parts of a child. Rais provided these remnants in a glass vessel at a later evocation, but to no avail, and the occult experiments left him bitter and his wealth severely depleted.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: In his confession, Rais said he committed his first assaults on children between spring 1432 and spring 1433. The first murders occurred at Champtocé-sur-Loire, but no account of them survived. Shortly after, Rais moved to Machecoul, where, according to his confession, he killed, or ordered to be killed, a large but uncertain number of children after he raped them.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: The first documented case of child-snatching and murder concerns a 12-year-old boy called Jeudon (first name unknown), an apprentice to the furrier Guillaume Hilairet. Rais' cousins Gilles de Sillé and Roger de Briqueville asked the furrier to lend them the boy to take a message to Machecoul, and, when Jeudon did not return, the two noblemen told the inquiring furrier that they were ignorant of the boy's whereabouts and suggested he had been carried off by thieves at Tiffauges to be made into a page. At Rais' trial, the events were attested to by Hilairet and his wife, the boy's father Jean Jeudon, and five others from Machecoul.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: In his 1971 biography of Rais, Jean Benedetti tells how the children who fell into Rais' hands were put to death:


title: Gilles de Rais

text: Rais' bodyguard Étienne Corrillaut, known as Poitou, was an accomplice in many of the crimes and testified that his master stripped the child naked and hung him with ropes from a hook to prevent him from crying out, then masturbated upon the child's belly or thighs. If the victim was a boy he would touch his genitals (particularly testicles) and buttocks. Taking the victim down, Rais comforted the child and assured him he only wanted to play with him. Rais then either killed the child himself or had the child killed by his cousin Gilles de Sillé, Poitou or another bodyguard called Henriet. The victims were killed by decapitation, cutting of their throats, dismemberment, or breaking of their necks with a stick. A short, thick, double-edged sword called a "braquemard" was kept at hand for the murders. Poitou further testified that Rais sometimes abused the victims (whether boys or girls) before wounding them and at other times after the victim had been slashed in the throat or decapitated. According to Poitou, Rais disdained the victims' sexual organs, and through engaging in sodomy with the child, had taken "infinitely more pleasure in debauching himself in this manner ... than in using their natural orifice, in the normal manner."


title: Gilles de Rais

text: In his own confession, Gilles testified that “when the said children were dead, he kissed them and those who had the most handsome limbs and heads he held up to admire them, and had their bodies cruelly cut open and took delight at the sight of their inner organs; and very often when the children were dying he sat on their stomachs and took pleasure in seeing them die and laughed”.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: Poitou testified that he and Henriet burned the bodies in the fireplace in Rais' room. The clothes of the victim were placed into the fire piece by piece so they burned slowly and the smell was minimized. The ashes were then thrown into the cesspit, the moat, or other hiding places. The last recorded murder was of the son of Éonnet de Villeblanche and his wife Macée. Poitou paid 20 "sous" to have a page's doublet made for the victim, who was then assaulted, murdered and incinerated in August 1440.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: On 15 May 1440, Rais kidnapped a cleric during a dispute at the Church of Saint-Étienne-de-Mer-Morte. The act prompted an investigation by the Bishop of Nantes, during which evidence of Rais' crimes was uncovered. On 29 July, the Bishop released his findings, and he subsequently obtained the prosecutorial cooperation of Rais' former protector, John VI, Duke of Brittany. Rais and his bodyguards Poitou and Henriet were arrested on 15 September 1440, following a secular investigation that corroborated the Bishop's. Rais' prosecution was likewise conducted by both secular and ecclesiastical courts, on charges that included murder, sodomy and heresy.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: The extensive witness testimony convinced the judges that there were adequate grounds to establish the guilt of the accused. After Rais admitted to the charges on 21 October, the court canceled a plan to torture him into confessing. Peasants of neighboring villages had earlier begun to make accusations that their children had entered Rais' castle begging for food and were never seen again. The transcript, which included testimony by the parents of many of these children as well as graphic descriptions of the murders provided by Rais' accomplices, was said to be so lurid that the judges ordered the worst parts to be struck from the record.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: The number of Rais' victims is not known, as most of the bodies were burned or buried; the number of murders is generally placed between 100 and 200, and a few have conjectured that there were more than 600. The victims ranged in age from 6 to 18 and were predominantly boys.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: On 23 October 1440, the secular court heard the confessions of Poitou and Henriet and condemned them both to death, followed by Rais' death sentence on 25 October. Rais was allowed to make confession, and his request to be buried in the church of the monastery of Notre-Dame des Carmes in Nantes was granted.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: Execution by hanging and burning was set for Wednesday 26 October. At nine o‘clock, Rais and his two accomplices proceeded to the place of execution on the Ile de Biesse. Rais is said to have addressed the crowd with contrite piety and exhorted Henriet and Poitou to die bravely and think only of salvation. His request to be the first to die had been granted the day before. At eleven o'clock, the brush at the platform was set afire and Rais was hanged. His body was cut down before being consumed by the flames and claimed by "four ladies of high rank" for burial. Henriet and Poitou were executed in similar fashion but their bodies were reduced to ashes in the flames and then scattered.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: Although Gilles de Rais was convicted of murdering many children by his confessions and the detailed eyewitness accounts of his own confederates and victims' parents, doubts have long persisted about the verdict. Counterarguments are based on the theory that Rais was himself a victim of an ecclesiastic plot or act of revenge by the Catholic Church or French State. In his 2006 book "The World of perversion: Psychoanalysis and the impossible absolute of desire", psychoanalyst James Douglas Penney notes that the Duke of Brittany, who was given the authority to prosecute, received all the titles to Rais' former lands after his conviction, and then divided the land among his own nobles. Writers such as secret societies specialist Jean-Pierre Bayard contend he was a victim of the Inquisition.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: In 1992, a mock re-trial of Rais was held as a media event in France, sans official involvement of public authorities and the judiciary. The lawyer Jean-Yves Goëau-Brissonnière made a long plea at the UNESCO amphitheatre in May 1992. Then in November 1992, he again organized such an ad hoc "court", at the Luxembourg Palace, to re-examine the source material and evidence available at the medieval trial. A team consisting of lawyers, writers, former French ministers, parliament members, a biologist and a medical doctor led by the writer Gilbert Prouteau and presided over by Judge Henri Juramy found Gilles de Rais not guilty. But, as contemporary French news and academic commentators reported, none of the participants sought professional advice from qualified medievalists.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: The proceedings were, in part, turned into a fictionalized biography called "Gilles de Rais ou la Gueule du loup" ["Gilles de Rais; or, the Mouth of the Wolf"], narrated by the writer Gilbert Prouteau. "The case for Gilles de Rais's innocence is very strong", Prouteau said, as reported by "The Guardian", noting that "[n]o child's corpse was ever found at his castle at Tiffauges" and that, in Prouteau's view, de Rais "appears to have confessed to escape excommunication". He concludes that the accusations appeared to have been "false charges made up by powerful rival lords to benefit from the confiscation of his lands." The journalist Gilbert Philippe of "Ouest-France" subsequently declared Prouteau "facetious and provocative", claiming further that Prouteau himself thought the retrial was "an absolute joke".


title: Gilles de Rais

text: In the early 20th century, anthropologist Margaret Murray and occultist Aleister Crowley questioned the involvement of the ecclesiastic and secular authorities in the case. Crowley described Rais as "in almost every respect...the male equivalent of Joan of Arc", whose main crime was "the pursuit of knowledge". Murray, who propagated the witch-cult hypothesis, speculated in her book "The Witch-Cult in Western Europe" that Rais was really a witch and an adherent of a fertility cult centred on the pagan goddess Diana.


title: Gilles de Rais

text: Most historians reject Murray's theory. Norman Cohn argues that it is inconsistent with what is known of Rais' crimes and trial. Historians do not regard Rais as a martyr to a pre-Christian religion; other scholars tend to view him as a lapsed Catholic who descended into crime and depravity, and whose real crimes were coincidental to the land forfeitures.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: Jean-Michel André Jarre (; born 24 August 1948) is a French composer, performer and record producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and new-age genres, and is known for organising outdoor spectacles featuring his music, accompanied by vast laser displays, large projections and fireworks.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and grandparents and trained on the piano. From an early age, he was introduced to a variety of art forms, including street performers, jazz musicians and the artist Pierre Soulages. But his musical style was perhaps most heavily influenced by Pierre Schaeffer, a pioneer of musique concrète at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: His first mainstream success was the 1976 album "Oxygène". Recorded in a makeshift studio at his home, the album sold an estimated 18 million copies. "Oxygène" was followed in 1978 by "Équinoxe", and in 1979, Jarre performed to a record-breaking audience of more than a million people at the Place de la Concorde, a record he has since broken three times. More albums were to follow, but his 1979 concert served as a blueprint for his future performances around the world. Several of his albums have been released to coincide with large-scale outdoor events.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: As of 2004, Jarre had sold an estimated 80 million albums and singles. He was the first Western musician officially invited to perform in the People's Republic of China and holds the world record for the largest-ever audience at an outdoor event for his Moscow concert on 6 September 1997, which was attended by 3.5 million people.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: Jean-Michel Jarre was born in Lyon on 24 August 1948, to Francette Pejot, a French Resistance member and concentration camp survivor, and composer Maurice Jarre. His grandmother was Jewish. When Jarre was five, his parents separated and his father moved to the United States, leaving him with his mother. He did not see his father again until reaching the age of 18. For the first eight years of his life, Jarre spent six months each year at his maternal grandparents' flat on the Cours de Verdun, in the Perrache district of Lyon. Jarre's grandfather was an oboe player, engineer and inventor, designing an early audio mixer used at Radio Lyon. He also gave Jean-Michel his first tape recorder. From his vantage point high above the pavement, the young Jarre was able to observe street performers at work, an experience he later cited as proving influential on his art.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: Jarre struggled with classical piano studies, although he later changed teachers and worked on his scales. A more general interest in musical instruments was sparked by his discovery at the Saint-Ouen flea market, where his mother sold antiques, of a Boris Vian trumpet violin. He often accompanied his mother to Le Chat Qui Pêche (The Fishing Cat), a Paris jazz club run by one of her friends from her resistance years, where saxophonists Archie Shepp and John Coltrane, and trumpet players Don Cherry and Chet Baker were regular performers. These early jazz experiences suggested to him that music may be "descriptive, without lyrics". He was also influenced by the work of French artist Pierre Soulages, whose exhibition at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris he attended. Soulages' paintings used multiple textured layers, and Jarre realised that "for the first time in music, you could act as a painter with frequencies and sounds." He was also influenced by classical, modernist music; in a 2004 interview for "The Guardian", he spoke of the effect that a performance of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" had upon him:


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: As a young man Jarre earned money by selling his paintings, exhibiting some of his works at the Lyon Gallery – "L'Œil écoute", and by playing in a band called Mystère IV. While he studied at the , his mother arranged for him to take lessons in harmony, counterpoint and fugue with Jeannine Rueff of the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1967 he played guitar in a band called "The Dustbins", who appear in the film "". He mixed instruments including the electric guitar and the flute with tape effects and other sounds. More experimentation was followed in 1968, when he began to use tape loops, radios and other electronic devices, in 1969 he joined the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), founded and led by Pierre Schaeffer, inventor of musique concrete. Jarre was introduced to the Moog modular synthesizer and spent time working at the studio of influential German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: In the kitchen of his apartment in Rue de la Trémoille, Jarre set up a small makeshift recording studio. It included his first synthesiser, an EMS VCS 3, and an EMS Synthi AKS, each linked to Revox tape machines. For a 1969 exposition at the Maison de la Culture (Cultural House) in Reims, Jarre wrote the five-minute song "Happiness Is a Sad Song". That same year he composed and recorded "La Cage/Erosmachine", a mixture of harmony, tape effects and synthesisers, which was released in 1971.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: In 1971 Jarre was commissioned by choreographer Norbert Schmucki to perform a ballet called "AOR" (in Hebrew, "the light"), at the Palais Garnier. He also composed background music for ballet, theatre, television programs, department stores, and advertising jingles for Pepsi-Cola, Nestle and RTL. The music for airports, and North America libraries was composed with the VCS 3 and an Farfisa professional organ. From 1972 to 1975, Jean-Michel wrote music and lyrics for artists like Françoise Hardy, Gérard Lenorman, Christophe and Patrick Juvet. In 1972 collaborated in Olympia show, and wrote music for the International Festival of Magic. That year he also released his first solo album, "Deserted Palace", and composed the soundtrack for "Les Granges Brûlées" (English: "The Burned Barns").


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: Jarre's 1976 low-budget solo album "Oxygène", recorded at his home studio, made him famous internationally. The music was made with analog synthesizers like the EMS VCS 3 and the EMS Synthi AKS, and recorded with a Scully 8-track recorder. Jarre initially was turned down by several record companies, until Jean-Michel decided to meet with Francis Dreyfus, the head of the Disques Motors label, to see if he could release the album, to which he accepted. The first pressing of 50,000 copies was promoted through hi-fi shops, clubs and discos, and by April 1977 had sold 70,000 copies in France. When interviewed in "Billboard" magazine, Motors's director Stanislas Witold said, "In a sense we're putting most of our bets on Jean-Michel Jarre. He is quite exceptional and we're sure that by 1980 he will be recognised worldwide."


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: Jarre's follow-up album, "Équinoxe", was released in 1978, though its sales were still healthy, it had less of an impact than "Oxygène", but the following year Jarre held a large open-air concert on Bastille Day, at the Place de la Concorde. The free outdoor event set a world record for the largest number of spectators ever at an open-air concert, drawing more than 1 million spectators. Although it was not the first time he had performed in concert (Jarre had already played at the Paris Opera Ballet), the 40 minute-long event, which used projections of light, images and fireworks, served as a blueprint for Jarre's future concerts. Its popularity helped create a surge in sales—a further 800,000 records were sold between 14 July and 31 August 1979—and the Frenchman Francis Rimbert featured at the event.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: By the time "Les Chants Magnétiques" was released on 20 May 1981, "Oxygène" and "Équinoxe" had achieved global sales of about 6 million units. In its first two months the then new album sold a reported 200,000 units in France alone. The album uses sounds from the Fairlight CMI, a new instrument of which Jarre was a pioneer. Its digital technology allowed him to continue his earlier sonic experimentation in new ways.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: In that same year, the British Embassy gave Radio Beijing copies of his "Oxygène" and "Équinoxe", which became the first pieces of foreign music to be played on Chinese national radio in decades. The Republic invited Jarre to become the first western musician to play in post-Mao Zedong China. The performances were scheduled to run from 18 October to 5 November 1981. However, only 5 concerts were given in total, two in Beijing and three in Shanghai. The first, in Beijing, was initially attended mostly by officials, but before the concert began technicians realised that not enough power was available to supply the stage and auditorium. Chinese officials solved the problem by temporarily cutting power to the surrounding districts.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: The stadium was almost full when the concert began, but as Beijing's buses stopped running at about 10 o'clock, about half the audience left before it finished. To boost the audience attendance for the second night, Jarre and his production team purchased some of the concert tickets and gave them to children on the streets (Jarre originally wanted the concerts to be free, but the Chinese authorities decided to charge between £0.20 and £0.50 per ticket). Recordings of the concerts, which featured one of Jarre's signature electronic instruments, the laser harp, were released as a double-disc LP in 1982.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: Between February and May of 1983, Jarre recorded a single LP copy of an album entitled "Musique pour Supermarché" (English: "Music for Supermarkets") whose objective was to be the soundtrack of a show called Orrimbe, to later be auctioned with the master tapes and plates destroyed. The album was later broadcast exclusively on Radio Luxembourg with Jarre encouraging listeners to record the broadcast.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: In 1984, he released seventh studio album "Zoolook", in this album was expanded the sample-based approach which had been initiated on "Les Chants Magnétiques" and continued on "Music for Supermarkets", the album was based around multiple fragments of human voices pronouncing words and speeches in different languages from all over the world, recorded digitally by Jarre and then played back and edited on the Fairlight CMI.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: In 1985, Jarre was invited by the musical director of the Houston Grand Opera to perform a concert celebrating Texas's 150th anniversary on 5 April 1986. Although he was busy with other projects and was at first unimpressed by the proposal, on a later visit to the city, he was immediately impressed by the visual grandeur of the city's skyline and agreed to perform. Also, 1985 marked the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center; and NASA asked Jarre to integrate the anniversary into the concert.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: Jarre worked with several Houston-based astronauts, including Bruce McCandless II and Ronald McNair, an accomplished musician who was to have played the saxophone on "Rendez-Vous VI", recorded in the weightless environment of space. The live performance was curtailed by McNair's death in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on 28 January 1986. Consideration was given to the cancellation of the concert; but McCandless contacted Jarre and urged him to proceed, in memory of the shuttle's crew. McNair's saxophone piece was recorded by French saxophonist Pierre Gossez and retitled "Ron's Piece". At Jarre's giant concerts in Houston and Lyon, the part was performed by McNair's friend, American saxophonist Kirk Whalum:


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: About 2,000 projectors shone images onto buildings and giant screens up to high, transforming the city's skyscrapers into spectacular backdrops for an elaborate display of fireworks and lasers. Rendez-vous Houston entered the "Guinness Book of Records" for its audience of over 1.5 million, beating his earlier record, set in 1979. The display was so impressive that a nearby freeway was blocked by passing vehicles, forcing the authorities to close it for the duration of the concert. Several months later he performed to an audience of about a million at his home city of Lyon, in celebration of a visit by Pope John Paul II. Watching from Lyon Cathedral, the Pope began the concert with a good-night blessing, a recording of which appears on "Cities in Concert – Houston/Lyon".


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: In 1988, Jarre released his ninth studio album "Revolutions", and in same year, a concert called Destination Docklands was planned for September, to be held at the Royal Victoria Dock in east London. Close to the heart of London, the location was chosen in part for its desolate environment, but also because Jarre thought the architecture was ideally suited for his music. Early in 1988 Jarre met with local officials and members of the community, but Newham Borough Council delayed their decision until 12 September the month in which the show was due to take place. The local fire service were also concerned about access in the event of a fire. Site work continued as Jarre's team searched for alternative locations in which to stage the concert, but following improvements to both on and off-site safety Jarre eventually won conditional approval on 28 September to stage two separate performances, on 8 and 9 October.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: The floating stage on which Jarre and his musicians performed was built on top of four large barges. Large purpose-built display screens were built, and one of the buildings to be used as a backdrop was painted white. One large mirror ball being transported to the event fell onto the roadside, causing a degree of confusion as some people mistook it for a fallen satellite. World War II searchlights were installed, to illuminate the sky and surrounding architecture. Along with thousands in the surrounding streets and parks, 200,000 people watched Jarre and guests such as guitarist Hank Marvin perform in less than ideal conditions. Inclement weather had threatened to break the stage from its moorings, putting paid to the original plan to float the stage across the Royal Victoria Dock. Wind speeds were so high that television cameras were blown over. On the second evening the audience, which included Diana, Princess of Wales, was soaked by rain and wind.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: In 1990, Jarre released "En Attendant Cousteau" ("Waiting for Cousteau"), a tribute to the French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. On Bastille Day he performed a concert at La Défense in Paris, attended by a record-breaking audience of about two million people, again beating his earlier world record. He later promoted a concert near the Pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico, to be held during the solar eclipse of 11 July 1991. However, with only weeks to go, important equipment had not arrived and the sinking in the Atlantic Ocean of a cargo ship containing the purpose-built pyramidal stage and other technical and financial problems made staging the concert impossible. Jarre's disappointment was such that he "could not cope with Mexican food for two years".


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: About two years later he released "Chronologie", an album that features Jarre's traditional collection of instruments like the ARP 2600 and Minimoog, as well as newer synthesisers such as the Roland JD-800 and the Kurzweil K2000.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: Jarre was invited to the inaugural celebrations of the Palace of the Lost City, a hotel located within the Sun City in South Africa. Three concerts were held on 1, 2 and 3 December 1992, in which more than 45,000 people attended.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: "Chronologie" was performed at a series of 16 performances across Europe called "Europe in Concert". These were on a smaller scale than his previous concerts, featuring a miniature skyline, laser imaging and fireworks. Locations included Lausanne, Mont St Michel, London, Manchester, Barcelona, Seville and the Versailles Palace near Paris. A concert was also held in Hong Kong in March 1994, to mark the opening of the city's new stadium. Jarre performed many of his most well-known hits at the "Concert for Tolerance" on Bastille Day in 1995, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. The Eiffel Tower was specially lit for the occasion, prompting the installation of a more permanent display. The following December, he created the website "A Space for Tolerance", which featured music from "En Attendant Cousteau", played while the user browsed a variety of "visual worlds".


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: In 1997, Jarre returned to the analogue synthesisers of the 1970s with "Oxygène 7–13", dedicated to his mentor at the GRM, Pierre Schaeffer, who had died two years before. In September that year he set his fourth record for the largest-ever outdoor-concert audience with a performance at the Moscow State University, celebrating the 850th anniversary of Moscow. The event was viewed by an audience of about 3.5 million. Another large-scale concert followed on 31 December 1999, in the Egyptian desert near Giza. The Twelve Dreams of the Sun celebrated the new millennium and offered a preview of his next album, "Métamorphoses" (released the following year). The show featured performances from more than 1,000 local artists and musicians, and was based on ancient Egyptian mythology about the journey of the sun and its effect upon humanity.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: In 2001, he released "Interior Music", an album of 1,000 copies created for use by the Danish audio-visual company Bang & Olufsen stores. The album consists of two long-form pieces: "Bonjour Hello", is a 25 minute audio collage of sounds with voices saying short sentences in French, English and Danish. The second piece, "Whispers of Life", is an instrumental version of the first, with the voices removed.


title: Jean-Michel Jarre

text: The same year he composed, with Francis Rimbert arrangements, the music for the short-lived French channel Match TV.} On 7 September 2002, Jarre held a very wet and muddy concert at the near the city of Aalborg in Denmark, with 40,000 spectators (including 5,000 VIPs). Danish band Safri Duo featured on the track "Aero", which in fact was Bourges 2 from the performance earlier that year, and Rendez-Vous 4. The concert was broadcast live on various TV stations around the world and a shortened one-hour version was made available for rebroadcast.