Shandar was a French record label specializing in avant-garde material that did seminal work during the 1970s releasing, among others, recordings by
Albert Ayler,
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...
,
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, a ...
,
Sunny Murray
James Marcellus Arthur "Sunny" Murray (September 21, 1936 – December 7, 2017) was an American musician, and was one of the pioneers of the free jazz style of drumming.
Biography
Murray was born in Idabel, Oklahoma, where he was raised by an ...
,
Philip Glass
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...
, Richard Horowitz,
Charlemagne Palestine,
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...
,
Alan Silva,
Pandit Pran Nath
Pandit Pran Nath (Devanagari: पंडित प्राणनाथ) (3 November 1918 – 13 June 1996) was an Indian classical singer and master of the Kirana gharana singing style. Promoting traditional raga principles, Nath exerted an ...
,
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...
,
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet.
Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex ...
and
Sun Ra. The records often carry, besides the name Shandar, the logo ''Shanti''.
The label was financed by Aimé and Marguerite Maeght, creators of the
Maeght Foundation
The Maeght Foundation or Fondation Maeght () is a museum of modern art on the ''Colline des Gardettes'', a hill overlooking Saint-Paul de Vence in the southeast of France about from Nice. It was established by Marguerite and Aimé Maeght in 1 ...
which organized modern art exhibitions and concerts. Consequently, much of the label's catalog consists of recordings of Maeght-sponsored concerts, as in the cases of
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet.
Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex ...
's and
Albert Ayler's ''
Nuits de la Fondation Maeght''. Among the works in its catalog, one of the most unusual is
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best kno ...
's ''
Dream House 78' 17"
''Dream House 78' 17"'' is a studio album by minimalist composer La Monte Young, artist Marian Zazeela, and their group the Theatre of Eternal Music (featuring trumpetist Jon Hassell and trombonist Garrett List). The album was originally relea ...
'', containing the music for one of Young's installations, the Dream House: both sides were almost 40 minutes long for a total duration of 78' 17", a length unheard of at the time but made necessary by the nature of the work. The label also released ''
Guitares Dérive'', written and performed live by the classical guitar duo Vincent Le Masne and Bertrand Porquet.
In spite of the unique material it owned, the label was short-lived. According to the magazine ''
The Wire'', a cellar beneath an art gallery in 40 Rue Mazarine in Paris where founders
Daniel Caux and Chantal Darcy worked was flooded in 1979, damaging irreparably both vinyl stocks and recordings. The gallery closed soon thereafter and Shandar vanished.
Some of its catalog was subsequently bought by other small labels and is therefore still available, but much of it has disappeared.
References
Ed Maurer's Discography of Shandar Records*
Daniel Caux biography
* January 3, 2003 issue of ''
The Wire''
{{Authority control
French record labels