Arthur Verocai

Arthur Verocai began his professional music career in 1969 as music director and guitar player for the show ‘É a maior.’ That same year he wrote orchestra arrangements which were presented in the music festivals of Porto Alegre and Sao Paulo for the first time. Over the next few years he was responsible for the orchestration of albums by Ivan Lins, Jorge Ben, Elizeth Cardoso, Gal Costa, Quarteto em Cy, MPB 4 and Marcos Valle among others. In the 1970s he was hired by Brazil’s biggest TV station TV Globo as musical director where he wrote the arrangements for many of the stations biggest shows.Following his success Arthur had with the production of Ivan Lins 1971 album Agora Arthur recorded his self-titled debut album on Continental Records. A forbidding Brazilian military dictatorship frowned on artistic impression that repressed the youth of the country. He challenged the musical conventions of the day combining Brazilian influences with folksy soul and lo-fi electronic experimentations of American artists like Shuggie Otis or the orchestration of producer Charles Stepney. His subtle protest experimented with new musical directions and used figurative language to sneak under the censorship radar..Today this album is a cult and has been sampled by many US producers, singers and artists. The idea of mixing strings with contemporary sounds came from my desire of searching for new paths. Back in 2009, we brought (with Mochilla) Arthur Verocai’s record to life again, with the help of a lot of friends. After the concert that night, Cut Chemist declared, “that was one of the best shows L.A. has ever seen.”