At the outbreak of the Second World War, Alain became a dispatch rider in the Eighth Motorised Armour Division of the French Army; he took part in the Battle of Saumur, in which he was killed.

His father, Albert Alain (1880–1971) was an organist, composer and amateur organ builder who had studied with Alexandre Guilmant and Louis Vierne.

[1] Jehan received his initial training in the piano from Augustin Pierson, the organist of Saint-Louis at Versailles, and in the organ from his father, who had built a four-manual instrument in the family sitting room.

His studies in composition with Paul Dukas and Jean Roger-Ducasse won him the Prix des amis de l'orgue in 1936 for his Suite for Organ, Op.

Alain described Le jardin suspendu ("The Hanging Garden") as a portrayal of "the ideal, perpetual pursuit and escape of the artist, an inaccessible and inviolable refuge".

("When the Christian soul no longer finds new words in its distress to implore God's mercy, it repeats incessantly the same invocation with a vehement faith.

Deuils ("mourning"), the second of the Trois danses, is dedicated to Odile (Alain's deceased sister) as a "Funeral Dance to an Heroic Memory".

[5] He left behind his wife, Madeleine Payan, whom he had married in 1935, his three children Denis, Agnès, and Lise,[1] and a body of compositions viewed by many to have been amongst the most original of the 20th century.