His great-grandmother was Josephine Amann-Weinlich, [3] who founded and conducted Europe's first women's orchestra, the Wiener Damen-Orchester (later the Erste Europäische Damenorchester), which toured extensively, including an 1871 appearance at New York's Steinway Hall.
His first commercially released work, an arrangement of Duke Ellington's composition "Main Stem" featuring saxophonist James Moody, Ron Carter, Kenny Barron, Freddie Waits et al., was issued in 1969 on the Milestone label.
The 1973 release also included sessions from 1971 featuring bassist Reggie Workman, Tyrone Washington on tenor sax and drummer Lenny White, along with Stadler himself on piano.
Commissioned by the NDR Big Band and conducted by Dieter Glawischnig, the arrangement featured musicians Manfred Schoof, Gerd Dudek, Albert Mangelsdorff, Wolfgang Dauner, Lucas Lindholm and Tony Inzalaco.
[11] In addition to his own work, in the 1970s he produced (together with partner Kent Cooper)[12] concerts at New York's Hunter College and the Brooklyn Academy of Music with artists such as Pete Seeger, Arlo Guthrie, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Buddy Guy & Junior Wells, Koko Taylor), Albert King, Louisiana Red and Peg Leg Sam.
Stadler's record productions include releases by blues musicians John Lee Hooker, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Louisiana Red, Johnny Shines and Roosevelt Sykes; classical pianists such as the Brazilian João Carlos Martins (the complete clavier works of Bach) and Arthur Moreira Lima (music of Chopin), Grete Sultan, Bulgarian musicians such as Pavlina Dokovska, Angela Tosheva, Nadejda Vlaeva, Ivan Spassov, Ivo Papazov and Gheorghi Arnaoudov, Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute [fr], the Chinese-American pianist Margaret Leng Tan (new music by John Cage and others); the Brazilian guitarist Carlos Barbosa-Lima, jazz musicians Dee Dee Bridgewater, Thad Jones, George Lewis, Tyrone Washington, Reggie Workman, Ken Peplowski, Randy Sandke, and Jay Clayton; the Harlem Spiritual Ensemble; a large group of important twentieth-century composers including the Americans Harry Partch and Petr Kotik, Japanese composer Somei Satoh, Korean composer Isang Yun and many others.
Labor's current catalogue focuses on unusual and often unknown repertoire coupled with landmark editions such as the complete keyboard works of J. S. Bach performed by the Brazilian pianist João Carlos Martins.