Give New York's
Oran Etkin credit for this -- his early childhood music education program,
Timbalooloo, sounds little like other music program for youngsters. A combination of jazz, world music, with interaction thrown into the mix, it's not necessarily better than other such programs -- I'll leave that for the pedagogic experts -- but it draws deep from wells that are lightly touched.
The first album from the Timbalooloo program is
Wake Up, Clarinet!, and after listening to the CD (and watching the 10 minutes of bonus video), I have a decent idea of the program's strength. Its core is classic jazz, played artfully by Etkin himself. As you'd expect from a jazz album, there's a lot of playful give-and-take between Etkin and the other performers, particularly vocalist Charenee Wade. There's also a lot of interactivity expected of the listeners, asking questions, giving the instruments characters through how the musicians play their instruments. (It's a touch of "Peter and the Wolf," I suppose.) If there's a downside, it's that the album's pretty short -- just 22 minutes long, including one song ("High Low") given two interpretations. After the first few times, I gladly would trade some of that and the introductions for ten minutes more of the band jamming on 3 or 4 different tracks.
The album is most appropriate for kids ages 2 through 6. You can buy the album
here, listen to the album
here and watch the bonus video
here. If
Wake Up, Clarinet!'s brevity helps keep it from reaching the heights of all-time classic jazz-for-kids disks, it's still pretty good. I think Etkin's got the chops to be doing this for some time, and if he does, I fully expect his albums to reach that essential jazz for kids level -- maybe even essential, period. Recommended.
If Kindiefest's Saturday night showcase was about introducing new(-ish) names (and one longtime favorite) to a new crowd, the Sunday afternoon public concert was more about a lineup guaranteed to draw in, you know, the public.
There was indeed a nice crowd, both of conference attendees as well as local families. (It's not a coincidence that the conference is held in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope, famous (and perhaps occasionally reviled) for the sheer number of families who live around there. And unlike the showcase, with its brief 20-minute sets that may subconciously lead artists to forgo contemplation for excitement, the public concert, with 30-minute sets, and a more passive audience, allows for more variation in styles.
For example, the concert kicked off with a set from Oran Etkin, who tells stories (either more traditional stories or about the instruments themselves) via jazz. He was very engaging with his young audience. Most of his songs are originals, but here he is with a take on a piece Dizzy Gillespie made famous...
Oran Etkin - "Salt Peanuts" [YouTube]
Next up was the delightful Heidi Swedberg and the Sukey Jump Band. The Brooklyn iteration of the band included Phillippa Thompson (who sometimes plays with Elizabeth Mitchell) and multi-instrumentalist Dean Jones. The set was similar to the one she played here in Phoenix in January, but the more enclosed nature of the performance here led to something occasionally hushed. I spoke with Elizabeth Mitchell a little bit later and she, too, enjoyed it...
Heidi Swedberg and the Sukey Jump Band - "When You Get Old" [YouTube]
And that was just two down...
Now that the 
