Jai Uttal

Jai Uttal is a kirtan leader, composer and multi-instrumentalist who has taught devotional chanting for around fifty years. Raised in New York City, he studied classical piano as a child and later banjo and guitar. At seventeen he heard Indian classical music for the first time and went on to study in California with the sarod master Ali Akbar Khan. In 1971 he met his guru, Neem Karoli Baba, in India, and he spent long periods there among the Baul street singers of Bengal and the kirtan singers of his guru's temple. He has released more than twenty albums blending Indian devotional music with rock, jazz and folk, and was nominated for a Grammy.

He regards Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of devotion, as the centre of his music and spiritual life. His teaching treats kirtan as a practice open to everyone, whatever their voice: call-and-response chanting of sacred names, simple mantra melodies, harmonium and guitar, silence, and stories from the Indian devotional tradition. He leads chanting evenings in California, week-long Kirtan Camp retreats in Costa Rica and a year-long online kirtan training, and teaches live courses on The Shift Network.