After studying plastic arts at the
École Duperré in Paris, and having devoted himself for several years to painting, Daniel Caux became known in the late 1960s as a specialist in new jazz trends, new American musical avant-garde, world music and marginalities of all kinds. From 1969 to 1975, he wrote in
Combat,
Jazz Hot, and held the musical section of the magazine ''L' Art vivant
. From 1974 to 1976, he wrote a series of articles on Arab music in Charlie Mensuel and, from 1975 to 1979, he became a contributor to the daily Le Monde''. An organizer of musical events, in 1970 he brought the "Nuits de la
Fondation Maeght", devoted that year to the United States, on the side of the great outsiders of the "
free jazz" of American Blacks, the saxophonist
Albert Ayler and, for the first time outside the United States, the great orchestra of
Sun Ra. On the "underground" side of white
contemporary music, he revealed the specific character of the
minimal music current with the Théâtre de la musique éternelle of
La Monte Young and the long repetitive variations of
Terry Riley. He was at the origin of the coming to Paris of other important composers of this movement:
Steve Reich in 1971 at the Théâtre de la musique and, within the framework of the
Festival d'automne,
Phil Glass in 1973,
Robert Ashley and the "
Sonic Arts Union" in 1974. He participated in the artistic direction of the label
Shandar, created by Chantal Darcy. The Shandar catalogue, which was entitled "Tomorrow's music today", includes
Albert Ayler,
Sun Ra and
Cecil Taylor as well as the known American minimalists
Terry Riley,
Steve Reich,
Phil Glass, and also several records of French musicians (
Intercommunal Music by
François Tusques, the duet ''
by Vincent Le Masne and Bertrand Porquet, Obsolete'' by
Dashiell Hedayat with the group
Gong). A radio man, Daniel Caux directed, during thirty years from 1970 to 1999, numerous musical programs on
France Culture and
France Musique. In 1971, he travelled through
Kabylia and in 1972, in the region of
Oran, where he recorded traditional
musics of Algeria. He visited many times the
Maghreb countries, Egypt and the United States (East Coast and West Coast). Under the name
Un nouveau courant ("a new current"), he organized for France Culture, at the youth Biennial of the
Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, two series of concerts in 1980 that shed light on a musical approach deviated from the
minimalist music that can be described as "
postmodern" with, among others, the English
Gavin Bryars and
Michael Nyman, and the Californians
Harold Budd and Daniel Lentz. In 1982, with the great orchestra of the American celestial tramp in the
Black Forest,
Moondog and the "
Penguin Cafe Orchestra" of London. At the request of
Patrice Chéreau, he set up, with , in 1984 and 1985 at the
Théâtre Nanterre-Amandiers, the twenty-five concerts that made up the
Journées de musiques arabes. Daniel Caux's efforts in favor of the "
postmodernern" musical trend continued in Paris at the
Théâtre de la Ville with the cycle ''D'autres musiques'' ("other musics") which allowed the Estonian composer
Arvo Pärt to be discovered in 1986, and welcomed, until 1989, many outstanding musicians such as the Americans
Jon Hassell,
Michael Galasso and
Glenn Branca. In 1995, after devoting several radio broadcasts to the American composer
Harry Partch, with whom he had a correspondence in the early 1970s with a view to organize a concert in France, he could finally realize this twenty-five-year-old project at the "Festival America" of
Lille. The instruments built by Harry Partch were played there - for the first time in France - by
Dean Drummond's "Newband". For twenty years, from 1970 to 1990, Daniel Caux was a lecturer at the
Paris 8 University (in Vincennes, then Saint-Denis). In the 1980s and 1990s, he wrote in
art press and
Le Nouvel Observateur and participated in numerous collective publications. In the wake of his interest in research in
electronic music, the repetitiveness of
minimalist music and the obsessive nature of traditional
trance music, he turned in the mid-1990s, into the defender of
techno music on which he wrote in various publications, in particular in the special issue of
Art Press:
Techno, anatomie des cultures électroniques published in 1998. For France Culture, he directed in February 1999 "Hypnomixotechno", the first series of in-depth radio programs devoted in France to this musical phenomenon . In 1994, Daniel Caux was musical curator of the exhibition
Hors limite (off limit) at the
Centre Georges Pompidou. For the celebration of the year 2000 in France, he was musical curator of the great exhibition
Beauté in Avignon (with, among others, an electronic environment through the
Palais des Papes in
Avignon by the Canadian composer and DJ
Richie Hawtin). For three years, from 1999 to 2002, he served as music advisor at the head of
France Culture. Daniel Caux died Saturday 12 July 2008 in
Paris. In the promotion of 14 July 2008, Daniel Caux was posthumously nominated as Officer of the
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. == Career on radio ==