Finding Friends Far from Home: A Journey with Clara Net

‘Tell us a story!’ kids chant on the opening track of this educational CD. What follows, though not quite a story, is certainly an adventure. Oran Etkin, a New York-based clarinettist and teacher, travels the world with his clarinets and enthusiasm, his aim, to introduce young children to ‘other cultures in a soulful and respectful way.’ The album progresses as a series of musical encounters in the Czech Republic, Zimbabwe, Turkey, China, Russia and Japan. Each location is prefaced by a conversation between our narrator Etkin and a local guide, and throughout Etkin's clarinet (or ‘Clara Net’ as she is named) can be heard interacting with the local musicians.

Behind this release is Etkin's acclaimed educational programme Timbalooloo, which shuns the traditional formats for Herbie Hancock and Mozart. This album, then, is a workshop squeezed onto a disc, perfect to lighten up the school run or provide inspiration for other music pedagogues. Lacking, however, is some perspective to situate our host Etkin or his clarinet licks in New York. Without context for the jazz house band, American music is allowed to float above the rest as somehow different, or as the culture through which we should view the world. Perhaps an opening track that introduces the sounds of his home city in a similar playful way to those from his travels could have done wonders to dampen the feelings of American centrism.