Bob Karcy

Born in England and raised in Brazil and the U.S., Arkadia founder and CEO Bob Karcy’s love affair with jazz began when he picked up the trumpet in boyhood. Growing up, he played in jazz bands and studied at the University of Pennsylvania and NYU, followed by Paris’s Sorbonne and the Paris Music Conservatory. During his years living in France, Bob recorded some pop-jazz albums for Polydor, and toured widely as a vocalist and trumpet player throughout Europe and the Middle East. Back in the United States, Bob established himself as a manager (for vocalist Phoebe Snow among others) and as an independent music producer, before returning to Europe to work as an international licensing agent, representing various European television networks, focusing on their deep catalog of musical and cultural programming. With the rise of the home video market in the early 1980s, Bob founded New York-based V.I.E.W. Video: a pioneer in cultural video music and documentary production, publishing and distribution, making music and performing arts programs widely collectible, long before the industry’s major players bought into that segment of the marketplace. Bob Karcy By the 1990s, with jazz the fastest-growing side of VIEW’s catalogue (and the Company having produced a number jazz concert programs of its own), Bob decided to return to the music business proper. He founded Arkadia Records, cultivated long-term relationships with some of the jazz’s finest artists and produced most of the label’s new releases, which went on to receive four Grammy Award nominations. The Arkadia name was inspired by Bob’s initials, RK—and by the ancient Greek land of Arcadia, a secluded idyll of peace, beauty and contemplation. As Arkadia’s CEO and primary producer, Bob maintains an old-school approach towards releasing music: He lets his taste and instincts lead the way. Bob stated, “I’m old enough to know that my intuition has a strong record of success.” Whether the music comes from stalwarts or newcomers in whom he hears promise and fresh ideas, Bob works with the music that appeals to him. For more than a quarter century, his only requirement has been that the names on the Arkadia roster “make strong and important artistic statements.” Bob is proud and honored to remain a crucial conduit for disseminating those statements to the wider world.