Candid Records was founded as a subsiduary of Archie Bleyer's Cadence label in New York City in 1960. The Jazz writer and civil rights activist, Nat Hentoff worked as the labels A&R director, aiming to create a representative catalog of the Jazz of the day.

Although there are classic dates led by Clark Terry and Coleman Hawkins with Pee Wee Russell, it is mainly for recordings of the emergent Avant-Garde and recordings celebrating the Civil Rights movement that stand out. Recordings by Cecil Taylor and Steve Lacy belong to the first group and Charles Mingus and Max Roach to the second, although their is not a strict differentiation. In particular, Roach's suite is a classic statement.

The label lasted only a short time however, and recording ceased duting 1961. The catalog passed in to the hands of the popular singer Andy Williams, who reissued some of the catalog on his Barnaby label. In 1988, the British Record Producer, Alan Bates, purchased the catalog outright and reissued the entire catalog, as well as items which had not previously appeared. Bates also launched a new recording programm, which continues to the present time. Stacey Kent , the American ex-patriate singer based in London, is among those to have recorded for the revitalised label.

See also

• List of record labels