Music: Pied Piper Oran Etkin wakes up instruments and audiences

Could there be a better representative of the Putumayo World Music label experience (and ethos) than Oran Etkin, featured artist at two performances Sunday for the finale of the 18th annual Please Touch Museum Junior Jazz Festival?

"Our [kids'] shows start with bringing the instruments to life," explained the musician and educator, a cultural globe-trotter born in Israel, raised and trained in the U.S., and also well-connected to the sounds and talents of West Africa.

"First I 'wake up' my clarinet and she starts to talk - 'Ma Ma, I want Ma Ma' " shared the multi-instrumentalist Etkin. "Then Big Mama Tuba comes out of the audience with a 'roar,' and we sing and dance.

"Then my clarinet is feeling hungry. So we sing and play [the Dizzy Gillespie and Kenny Clarke classic] 'Salt Peanuts.' Then we take a trip around the world - all the way from Duke's [Ellington] place down to Africa, from France to New Orleans.

"The kids are usually right there with us from the first moment when they see and hear this instrument talking. And that's what music should do. It should speak to you."

"Oran is a pied piper. The kids are mesmerized in his presence. Parents, too," enthused Mona Kayhan, co-producer of the "Putumayo Kids" album series that's celebrating its latest (like, 20th) release, "Jazz Playground," with this show.

Etkin's contribution to the compilation is a bopped and bluesy version (with singer Charenee Wade) of a familiar children's song, "Little Lamb Jam." It's an apt example of the Putumayo label's whole-earth approach to musical celebration, combining elements familiar with those that are not. All to broaden developing minds - those young and young at heart.

Themed on a globally embracing style (jazz, reggae, folk), a culture (New Orleans, French, Brazilian) or a kid-centric theme (picnicking, playground, dreamland), "about 80 percent" of Putumayo's compilation CDs "sing" in one or several foreign languages. "And we sell them all around the world," noted Kayhan, an ethnomusicologist by training.

"So, the first and foremost element we focus on is the music," Kayhan said. "It's got to be good and accessible. That's the entry point for the child, the parent, the grandparent and the teacher. Thing is, kids are like sponges when they're young. When exposed to one of these discs, they instinctively come to see there are different ways to say, sing or play something.

"That broadens their understanding of their own and other cultures, makes them realize there are different ways to communicate. It makes them more tolerant and global citizens as they grow."

Putumayo World Music doesn't share sales figures on either its children's or grownup music packages. But clearly the label is doing things right by doing things differently.

The operation mostly licenses tracks rather than producing them; it brands all sets with similarly crafty, colorful, folk-art designs; and it sells the offerings in dedicated displays and listening stations at "alternative" outlets, such as gift, clothing and toy stores and Whole Foods supermarkets.

"So, while dedicated record shops are closing, the number of stores carrying Putumayo discs has actually expanded," Kayhan shared. "Merchants enjoy playing the albums in the store. They say the music lends an appealing atmosphere."

The children's segment of the music business has proven more resilient to downturns in album sales "as parents look for better alternatives to the Britney Spears of the world," said the label exec. "There's now a lot of stuff out there for kids, but nothing else quite like ours."

Some artists, like Dan Zanes, who used to make grownup music, too, have gone totally family-friendly.

Oran Etkin aims to maintain his split identity, thankfully.

Do your ears a favor and check out his adult-oriented album and group, "Kelenia," on the Motema label, offering a very fresh fusion of American jazz and Malian (Africa) talents, with a tad of old world klezmer. The set recently earned the Independent Music Award for best world-beat CD of the past year.

An equal priority for Etkin is working his own building-block methodology to imbue children (as young as 2) with the joys of music "so they learn to understand and make music as instinctively as they learn to speak and control their bodies."

He is active in New York City offering classes in community centers and living rooms. He also dreams of getting his own TV show and is prepping a jazz recording for children, "Wake Up, Clarinet!" from whence that "Little Lamb Jam" cometh.