Open Arms by Oran Etkin

“We are together, we are soldiers of peace” - these words of 85 year old Zimbabwean Mbira master Tute Chigamba start off the track “We Are Together” encapsulating the mission of Open Arms. The project, steeped in the values of listening and mutual co-creation on a global level, is Etkin’s answer to a world suffering from mutual destruction, polarization, dehumanization and fear. In a rebuke to the forces dividing us, this album focuses on connections: deeply personal connections that Etkin formed with musicians around the world as he toured, and then layers of connection between the music and people of each country that unfold through Etkin’s compositions.

Recorded as Etkin toured in Brazil, Zimbabwe, US, Canada, Czech Republic and Turkey, the album features on-location collaborations with musicians in each country as well as well as innovative use of sampling and electronics to improvisationaly deconstruct these field recordings in an interconnected web spun by Etkin’s live band. This fresh combination of deeply traditional sounds with forward looking improvisations tells a spellbinding story of an opening and connected world, rooted in its cultures yet intent on forging a new path forward.

The album opens with É Doce Morrer No Mar recorded in Rio de Janeiro with 75 year old legendary songwriter Danilo Caymmi, whose father wrote this song in 1941. The album closes with the same composition completely reinterpreted by Etkin and his New York band with Kevin Hays and Matt Wilson from a live concert of theirs in Canada. In between we can hear Etkin in Zimbabwe in a beautiful intimate duo with Mbira master Musekiwa Chingodza playing a traditional song for the mermaid spirit, or in Prague with Romani singer Pavlina Matiova and a band of Roma, Czech & Slovak musicians playing Djelem Djelem, a song at the heart of the national struggle of the Roma people (Roma are the people often referred to as Gypsies, and Etkin has been active in collaborating with Pavlina and other Roma musicians and activists over the past five years).

At the center of the album are a series of original compositions recorded with his Open Arms Band in São Paulo for NYC Winter Jazz Fest. Pavlinka’s Dream starts off with the band improvising around a sample of Pavlina singing a Roma lullaby and the moves into the psychedelic world of dreams. Drummer Serginho Machado lays into a double-time hip-hop infused trap beat, enhanced with loops of hand-clapping from Zimbabwe, an electronically modulated sample of an mbira and a short loop of a kopuz from Turkey, that he triggers in and out spontaneously. Etkin’s clarinet and Gomes’ guitar float above with a rubato melody that Etkin composed by stretching and playing with the melodic shapes of the lullaby. Serginho can also be heard front and center on Protection Song, which combines recordings Etkin made in Turkey with traditional masters Erkan Ogur and Jehan Barbur along with Machado’s funky and modern drumming style. Caymmi is a dedication to Danilo Caymmi and the legacy of his family in Brazil, and is followed by Looking For Lacy, where musical elements of Caymmi linger and overlap with the theme from Etkin’s composition dedicated to Steve Lacy that he recorded in Paris with Thomas Enhco. The track We Are Together finds the Open Arms Band, recorded in São Paulo, improvising over samples from Etkin’s work in Zimbabwe with the Chigamba family. The elder of the family, Tutu Chigamba, can be heard talking to Oran saying “Everywhere in the world you can go, you don’t fear anyone, you don’t fear anything. Because when you start playing, people sit down and think more deeply... yes, we are soldiers of peace”

"great clarinet player, excellent improviser" - NYTimes critic Ben Ratliff
"composer of eminent individuality" - Yusef Lateef.
Voted #1 Rising Star Clarinetist in DownBeat Magazine’s 2016 Critics Poll.
“This is world music in the true sense, not a lazy hybrid but a personal sound born out of deep respect for diverse musical traditions" - Irish Times

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