Arthur Verocai

A son of bossa

Arthur Cortes Verocai was born on June 17, 1945 in Rio de Janeiro, studied civil engineering and graduated around 1968. A composer, arranger, guitarist, producer and singer, he calls himself a son of bossa and names Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Wes Montgomery, Debussy, Villa-Lobos, Chicago, Zappa, Jimmy Webb and Tom Jobim among his influences. His first arrangements, in 1969, were for festival songs, and through the late 1960s and 1970s he arranged under Roberto Menescal for Jorge Ben, Gal Costa, Elis Regina, Ivan Lins, Marcos Valle and Quarteto em Cy, among others.

His self-titled debut came out in 1972 on Continental (SLP-10.079), recorded in Rio with an early synthesizer and the engineer Salinho Moreira; the studio is not named in our sources. Nobody said anything about it, he told Sounds and Colours, and he moved into advertising jingles and, by Wikipedia's account, stopped composing for about thirty years. He says the label let him do what he wanted. Saudade Demais appeared in 2002 or 2005, and the producer Kassin and Azymuth's Jose Roberto Bertrami told him the record was praised in Europe; Luv N' Haight reissued it in 2003, and Mr Bongo again around December 2016. Original LPs have sold for above 2,000 pounds.

He gave a Red Bull Music Academy lecture in Melbourne in 2006 and released Encore on Far Out in 2007. On March 15, 2009 he played the whole album with a 30-piece orchestra at the Luckman Theater at Cal State LA, invited by Mochilla and filmed as Timeless (released March 30, 2010). No Voo do Urubu came in December 2016. Since 2021 he has arranged for Hiatus Kaiyote ("Get Sun"), BadBadNotGood (Talk Memory), Flor and others. Cut Chemist, Madlib, MF Doom and TV on the Radio have cited him; MF Doom sampled "Na Boca do Sol" on "Orris Root Powder" (2005), Little Brother sampled "Caboclo" on "We Got Now" (2005), and Ludacris, Curren$y and Action Bronson have followed. Setlist.fm shows 20 setlists since August 2023, with festivals planned for August 2026.