Jai Uttal "Sacred, Devotional Music as a Healing Energy. (Bhakti Yoga)" 08/11/20

Bio: Jai Uttal, Grammy-nominated sacred music composer, recording artist, multi-instrumentalist, and ecstatic vocalist, combines influences from India with influences from American rock and jazz, creating a stimulating and exotic multi-cultural fusion that is truly world spirit music. Having traveled extensively in India, where he met many great saints and singers, Bhakti Yoga became his personal path. Jai has been leading, teaching, and performing kirtan around the world for close to 50 years, creating a safe environment for all people to open their hearts and voices. Jai’s musical journey began at an early age. Growing up in Manhattan, the son of record executive Larry Uttal, he was ideally suited to absorb pop music’s ’50s and ’60s golden age. “Every week my father would bring home the top ten singles and play them for my sister and me, asking for our opinions,” he remembers. “That was just so great. We were surrounded by musicians and producers and even got to witness some timeless recording sessions.” Jai studied piano when he was quite young. But his real musical passion emerged when he discovered the banjo, diving deeply into the old-timey Appalachian song tradition. Then, of course, came the electric guitar and the mind-bending universe of sonic colors inspired by Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles. But the first encounter with Indian music at age 17, attending a concert by Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, proved to be a life-changing experience. He would later say that this music “entered my heart like the source of all life.” Soon he was studying sarod (a twenty-five stringed Indian lute) with Khansahib in Northern California, which would become his home. Jai says that his time with Maestro Khan totally transformed his relationship to sound and to the music itself.