Leon Jean-Marie's two-decades-in-the-making career seems proof of the old adage ‘good things come to those who wait’. The musician, composer and producer who began his career learning the ropes as an assistant sound engineer at Swan Yard Innovation Studios, London.
Taking any chance he could to use the studio for his own use, Leon Jean-marie began working on his own material which eventually found its way to legendary Island Records and 4th & Broadway A&R man Julian Palmer and BBE’s Drew Mcfadden. From there a two-album deal with Island Records was signed, leading Leon on a two-year whirlwind journey of writing and recording with the likes of Mark Ronson in New York and Bloodshy & Avant (who later became Miike Snow) in Sweden.
While his 2008 album of tightly wound indie funk, Bent Out of Shape, was critically acclaimed and saw him tour the UK and Europe, including playing Glastonbury twice, his career didn’t catch fire in the same way as contemporaries such as Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse and a few years later, the relationship with Island came to an end.
While in Australia, trying to figure out where life would take him next, Leon settled on the idea of pursuing composition for film and TV and made a plan for when he arrived back in London. Through friend Goetz Botzenhardt, Leon got the opportunity to shadow famed British film composer Christian Henson at Tile Yard studios in London’s Kings Cross and found himself soaking up everything he could, just as he had at Swan Yard a decade earlier.
But when his skills as a studio engineer came in handy on 2014 film Robot Overlords, Leon got his first film credit and started on his journey scoring for film and fashion brands like Vogue, Valentino and Fendi. This year LJM Studio scored three documentaries, 'Love Languages' (Netflix), 'Run to the Source' (Patagonia Films), 'Our Jubilee' (ITV). While acting as director of composition for his co-owned 'Curation', the music agency became one of the most successful in the UK and is the only black and brown owned in Europe.