Verve Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). Founded in 1956 by Norman Granz, the label is home to the world's largest jazz catalogue, which includes recordings by Ella Fitzgerald, Cal Tjader, Nina Simone, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Billie Holiday, Oscar Peterson, Jon Batiste, and Diana Krall, among other notable artists, as well as a diverse mix of recordings that fall outside the jazz category, with albums from such disparate artists as the Velvet Underground, Kurt Vile, Arooj Aftab, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, and many more. It absorbed the catalogues of Granz's earlier label, Clef Records, founded in 1946; Norgran Records, founded in 1953; and material which was previously licensed to Mercury Records.