Jai Uttal

American kirtan singer, multi-instrumentalist, and pioneer of devotional sound in the West — one of the central figures, alongside Krishna Das, Snatam Kaur, and Deva Premal, in the late-twentieth-century revival of bhakti chanting in the United States. Born 1951 in New York and raised in a musical family, Jai Uttal traveled to India in the early 1970s to study with Ali Akbar Khan (sarod) and to encounter the Bauls of Bengal — the wandering troubadour-mystics whose ecstatic devotional song deeply shaped his approach. Through Krishna Das and Ram Dass he came into the orbit of Neem Karoli Baba's lineage, and in the years since has recorded more than twenty albums (Footprints, Beggars and Saints, Mondo Rama, Loveland, Kirtan! — Yo Soy, Kirtan Camp Sing-Along), founded the long-running Kirtan Camp retreats, and become one of the most-toured devotional performers of his generation. He carries the Pardesi Records label and teaches kirtan as a path of heart-opening accessible to anyone, regardless of background or belief.