Mal Waldron - Live in Mestre Venezia 1984 (2025)

Live recorded at Toniolo Theatre, Mestre (Venezia), Italy, on 15th February 1984; edited and mastered in October 2025 by Bruno Cimenti for Primigenia Produzioni.

Caligola, a cultural association based in Venice, has been organizing jazz, folk, and blues concerts since 1980. In 1994, it founded an independent jazz label of the same name, Caligola Records. It therefore seemed natural to select the best live recordings from more than a thousand concerts, so that music lovers around the world — both young and old — could finally hear them. For this reason, we chose to name this series “Historical Concerts”. The fifth release in the series features a concert as rare as it is valuable: a performance by the previously undocumented duo of pianist Mal Waldron (1925–2002) and saxophonist Sam Rivers (1923–2011), recorded in February 1984 at the Toniolo Theatre in Mestre (Venice). No official albums by this duo exist, as they performed together only during a short European tour. At the time, Waldron was appearing in duo primarily with saxophonist Steve Lacy. On this occasion, however, the two jazz masters revisited a selection of well–known standards, reinterpreting them with their distinctive and unmistakable instrumental voices.