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.
quotes in library
Quotes by Jai Uttal
103 quotes“In Hindi, kirtan means 'narration with music.'”
“You narrate the names. You narrate the qualities. You narrate the love.”
“And in the narrating, the love becomes real.”
“This is what music does.”
“You came here to sing.”
“Maybe not as a profession. Maybe not on a stage.”
“In the kitchen. In the car. In the shower. In the cancer ward. In the prison cell.”
“That is the practice.”
“That is the path home.”
“Bhagavan Das took me to my first satsang with Maharaj-ji's people.”
“That changed everything for me.”
“You never know where the door will open.”
“Stay open. Be willing.”
“The lineage finds you.”
“My albums are not performances. They are offerings.”
“I make them as a way of saying thank you.”
“Thank you to the lineage. Thank you to the listener. Thank you to the Divine.”
“If you receive them in that spirit, they will do their work.”
“Footprints, Beggars and Saints, Mondo Rama, Kirtan! — these are not titles.”
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