Caligola Records

Caligola Records was founded in 1994 in Venice, within the cultural association by the same name that was already known for promoting concerts since 1980 (Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Ornette Coleman, to name but a few). The experience gained and the fruitful relationship established with a great deal of Italian jazzmen inevitably led to the production of their records with the help of the extremely prolific Veneto jazz scene. It’s not a coincidence that the first album, «Sweet Sixteen» (1994), was a successful mix of the above–mentioned factors. Its protagonist was Keptorchestra, an original yet undervalued big band born around some young talents like Marcello and Pietro Tonolo, Marco Tamburini, Maurizio Caldura, Bruno Marini, Piero Odorici, Roberto Rossi, Mauro Negri and Giampaolo Casati, hailing from different areas of Northern Italy. Such wonderful ensemble was enriched by Steve Lacy’s soprano sax for «Sweet Sixteen» and just two years later, in «Miss Etna», by another great American saxophonist, Joe Lovano. One of the strengths of the label is certainly its historic relationships with jazzmen like Claudio Cojaniz, Paolo Botti, Marco Ponchiroli, Marcello Tonolo, Domenico Caliri, Maurizio Brunod, Cristiano Calcagnile, Massimo Donà, Michele Polga and the never forgotten Marco Tamburini, who died prematurely in May 2015. At the same time, we must underline the simultaneous presence of both emerging artists, often authors of successful first works (we must mention «Shardana» by clarinetist Zoe Pia as well as «Dada» by pianist Roberto De Nittis). Today, after a 27–year activity, our catalogue has more than 300 titles, the physical ones, exclusively distributed by www.ird.it and digitally by www.o2digitale.com