Jai Uttal- Grammy nominated kirtan/world music artist

Hear Jai Uttal share amazing stories and insights from a life as a musician and devotee of sound in this fun and deeply personal interview originally recorded on December 10, 2020.

Jai Uttal is a grammy nominee, kirtan artist, multi-instrumentalist, and ecstatic vocalist. He is considered a pioneer in the world music community with his combined influences from India and American rock and jazz.  Jai has been leading, teaching, and performing World Music and kirtan—the ancient yoga of chanting or singing to God—around the world for close to 50 years, creating a safe environment for people to open their hearts and voices.
Connect with Jai and access his offerings here https://jaiuttal.com/

WM: Well here we are. Thanks for joining us. I'm so excited today to have Jai Uttal as my guest and Jai’s music has been a big inspiration on my path. He was the first kirtan artist I ever heard and is just somebody I look up to for his ability to bring Indian classical and devotional music and just putting out so much music in that genre. Welcome, Jai.

JU: Thank you, so happy to be here with you, Will.

WM: I love to begin by just hearing what some of your earliest musical memories are and where that kind of sparked for you as a young person. For some of us it was a part of our household or family and I think everyone has a unique story of their early musical memories.

JU: My first memories... My father was in the music business. And he was a musician but he was a little bit of a frustrated musician and so he put his music playing aside and became a businessman in the music business. He had a long string of record companies. He had some periods of great success and he, you know, finally went bankrupt and had periods of financial ruin, I guess we could say. But when I was young, like, I can think like nine, ten, eleven [years old] something like that. Every week, my dad would bring home the top 20 singles from the radio stations and sit with me and my sister. My sister is a year and a half older, and my Dad would like, pick our brains for what we thought about each of these singles. And, it was really cool. I was quite young, I don't remember what I said but just the fact, first of all it was a beautiful bonding experience with my father, which I will say we didn't have many of those through life, but that was something special and he really wanted to know what the young ear heard. So that was really cool. My first, I would say, musical love; when I was around 11, a friend of mine played five string banjo and he played it for me and I fell in love with the banjo, and I just became obsessed with it. I was also a very alienated kid. I didn't have many friends and my home scene was emotionally very tense, let's put it that way and, somehow the banjo, I don't exactly know why, but just playing the strings of that instrument gave me a sense of sanctuary. I had studied piano since I was six. I never would say I got particularly good at piano although I'm thankful because it gave me a foundation of music theory. But the love came with a banjo and field of passion in the banjo. It's what's called old timey music. It's the music that came before bluegrass, so it's not fancy. It can be technical but it's not that mathematical thing of bluegrass banjo which I should say I love, but I never got into it very much. So it was you know the mountain music of Appalachia and Ozarks and you know, very rustic music. And the singing of these musicians, there's a couple that were particularly moving to me, just connected me with that inner longing for, I don't know how I worded it at that time, but I certainly felt an inner longing for some deep connection.

WM: Were you singing as well? These kinds of traditional songs, with the banjo?

JU: Very little. I was actually so insecure about singing that I sang some, but I didn't really embrace singing until my 40’s. You know, one thing that I should add is that I started studying Indian classical music with Ali Akbar Khan when I was 19 and Ali Akbar Khan would not teach us instrumental music, unless we also studied vocal music. There was a vocal teacher at the time, an Indian woman, who was a part of the school, and none of the guys in the class wanted to sing. It was just like, no, the sarode was just so powerful and masculine and that was what we wanted to do. And singing requires or creates, maybe that’s a better word, so much vulnerability. Later, I began to understand that playing instruments also does. At that moment in my life I wasn't really connecting to it in that way. So it was Khansaahib (Ali Akbar Khan) that got me singing. And I didn't fully embrace it until later but if Khansaahib didn't have that rule and it was an absolute rule, it was like “I won't teach you, unless you do this.” If he didn't have that rule, I don't know if I would have ever really gotten into singing. I know I'm completely jumping ahead from the question.

WM: No, I think that's a really awesome bit there that it wasn't necessarily like you felt this freedom to be devotional and expressive with your voice so easily. It came over time and Khansaahib required it as a musical pedagogy. You know I'm familiar with that too, you learn all these sargams and that is a requirement for the study of raga, and I think it's beautiful how that kind of brought out this this freedom for your voice and, kind of forced you to be like “alright, well, if I want to play sarode, I’ve got to do some singing.” And I'm glad that happened!

JU: I’m so glad that happened! I remember one time you know when I would practice the singing, the compositions that we were learning in the class, I had to make sure that no roommates were in my house. It was a shared house with a bunch of students and I even had to look out the window and see that the neighbor's car was not there. [laughter] I was so shy! And that I remember one time practicing Puriya Dhanshree and this beautiful song that we were learning and oh my god, it was probably the first time in my life that I felt in expressing music and working on music, this wholeness in my heart, you know. I guess I was nineteen or eighteen. You know, my chronological memory is so bad. But yea, after all that’s said and done, Ali Akbar Khan transformed my life.

WM: Yeah, I think that's a really cool thing how, you know, it wasn't the simple call and response of devotional kirtan, it was the rather complex raga music that even that still you were, shy to have people hear you but I think that's a really cool story that a lot of people probably wouldn't expect. You know, Puriya Dhanshree, Marwa, these are difficult scales to sing. And this is what brought your voice out so again, I think that's a really fascinating and fun bit to share.

JU: And backtracking... I have to say that I still love the banjo, and since the pandemic started I actually have dived more deeply once again into banjo. And you know I'm taking an online course and my skills are still, you know this is like 50 years of barely playing it. So my skills are still rough but I've been writing a lot of kirtan songs, accompanied by the banjo and it’s fun man.

WM: Yeah. Is that something we may hear in an upcoming album or release or is this something that you're just kind of doing as your own practice?

JU: Well I don't know any more about albums and releases. [laughter] That’s another discussion which we can get to, but I have been singing them. You know, since March, since the second week of March, I've been doing live stream concerts every Friday. Almost every Friday, we’ve taken some weeks' breaks but that's a lot of concerts, you know, and their concerts/ kirtans. So some of it is me performing songs and some of it is call and response kirtans. So anyway, I've shared a lot of, these banjo kirtan songs. I just don't know about recording right now.

WM: Yeah, I feel you, that's another topic. Well, I'm gonna backtrack a little. We got a little bit of your background, with your father [in the music business]. That's just so kind of sweet the way that he, I can see the business side of it too. It's like he wanted to know what young people thought of popular music and it's brilliant as a way to connect and foster that connection to music. And then you found the banjo and eventually you made it out to Marin [county in CA] where you studied with Khansaab (Ali Akbar Khan). Now, kind of as this was happening, was there something inside of you that knew like “this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to be a musician.” Were you expected to kind of have another role in life, when you were talking about career and identity, or were you maybe clear that I'm going to be a musician and follow this as a career path?

JU: Well, remember that I moved to California in 1969 and prior to that I was living in Oregon for a little while. I went to Reed College but I dropped out after one semester having failed music and religion. And I love saying that it's true, so ironic! You know, I was full into the hippie...I'll just say, I was kind of like a flower power, spirit-loving hippie, as opposed to like a motorcycle driving, hard-drinking hippie. So, thoughts of career were the farthest thing from my mind. That being said, I always knew that I wanted to be a musician. I didn't think of it as necessarily a business, a way to support myself. I just didn't, you could say I was completely unrealistic. I just wasn't connected to the mainstream world. I was just in another community of friends and stuff. We were dreamers, you know, but I didn't know, and I actually saw myself when I saw when I would look into the future, you know, I saw myself as, not as a singer, again I wasn't really embracing singing, but as as like a musician yogi who lived on a mountain top and played healing music that people would come and listen to. So it’s kind of funny, you know, that much I had of myself as a teenager. Well it’s not exactly what I'm doing now. I'm not on a mountain and I'm not a healer and I live with my family and I’ve got a 15 year old kid etc. etc. But the essence of that dream of who I would become, it’s what happened! You know, my parents also really discouraged me. They encouraged me to study music and learn music and that was beautiful. It was a gift. But my father, you know, said “why don't you join me in the business?” You know, what they were saying had truth, you know, because being a musician, there's so much competition.  And they just said you got to be a really unique person to make it. But the thing was that I didn't think about making it. I didn't even know what making it meant. I didn't care about making it. At the time, I just knew that I had to play music. And that if i didn’t I would die and you know I'm 69 now and it's about the same. It’s about the same. I have financial concerns now and we work in that world now and so different things have evolved but still essentially it's like you know, play music, write music and sing or else we're gonna die.

So yeah, I've kind of been me for a long time! [laughter]

WM: That's the goal for all of us, to have that trust and clarity. It can be anything, but that's more than anything that our mind can conceive it's coming from, you know, a deeper place and I think we see the power of that you know, you were free spirit with the hippies and you had a vision of what your soul knew it was here to do and like you said it's not exactly the same but the essence is very much the same. I like to affirm that with listeners and people who are maybe on an artistic path or, you know, we all have to quote/unquote “make it” to some extent, we have to live in the material world, but I think it's powerful hearing someone like you who has spent a life creating music sharing that, “I've just been following what I know to be true.” There’s a lot of depth to that. And talking about your family and your parents, did you grow up with a strong kind of religious identity or family dynamic?

JU: Well, my parents... As much as my life revolves around Hindu devotional practices, you know, if someone asks me, I consider myself Jewish. And I feel very connected to the ancient tribal aspect of Judaism but I'm not at all connected to any synagogue. A strong Jewish religious practitioner would call me like a lapsed  failed Jew or something like that. Or my friend called me Jew-ish. With a dash between Jew and ish! [laughter] But my parents, you know, we went to synagogue, they weren't religious, they were more like culturally Jewish. Does that make sense?

WM: Yes, identity. it's like “this is where we come from” and we do some of the outward things to show it but it's not like a deep engaged practice.

JU: I wouldn't say that they were spiritual people. I was Bar Mitzvahed, you know all that, but the family dynamic was a very difficult one. And let's just skip over it. I've shared my family, my childhood family dynamic. It's not like it’s a secret. But I'll just say that it was really difficult. With alcoholism, and other stuff and yet, my parents gave me music. And my mother was an artist, a painter. So our house, our family, was very artistic. Despite all the other sorrowful things, it was an artistic family, you know? I mean when I was young, my father actually brought me to a recording session. You’re  younger you might not know… Have you ever heard of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit wheels?

WM: I haven't.

JU: He was one of the great rockers. He had a couple of super hit records. “Good Golly, Miss Molly”... They were big hit songs and they were really raw and rough.

WM: I know that song, “Good Golly Miss Molly”. I'm familiar with the songs, yeah.

JU: Okay and “Devil With A Blue Dress On.” Anyway, I was at those recording sessions. I was a little kid and, you know, that was just like mind blowing! So, even though it's not the musical direction I went in, it added to this like, “Wow! This is where it’s at!” You know, despite everything I have so much gratitude to my parents for having planted that seed in me.

WM: Yeah. My friend who I'm recording with here is Jewish, and like many of us, his path has embraced a lot of different worldviews and inspirations and I think it's powerful for other people to hear that maybe on the outward side or like what a Jew supposed to be, you wouldn't quite fit in. But in your heart and in your identity you still connect with that ancient tradition, and I think that's something valuable for people to hear. It's like you don't have to be the Jew that your parents want you to be or that your Rabbi wants you to be but if that personal kind of spark is there, there's something to that, you know, you're not distancing yourself or trying to step away from your roots. You're actually having a broader life experience and then still coming back to something that is ancient, and that's something that I really liked that we got out of that bit there and it's good for people to hear that.

JU: I think it was around 25 years ago, I was invited to sing at a festival in Israel. I had made friends with an Israeli spirit rock group, I don't know, world music group, let's put it that way, a very spiritual world music group, and at first they were fans of mine and they live in Israel but they had come to America a couple of times and the fan relationship very quickly turned into a good friend relationship and a couple of the guys, particulary one is now so many years later one of my very very very best friends. But anyway, I went to Israel. It was a festival of Israeli-Palestinian peace, which at the time was, was a dangerous statement, I guess even still is a dangerous statement. But I found there you know this whole culture of very devout Jewish India-philes. You know, because Israel is quite close to India and almost all the people that I met you know after they got out of the army, because they all have to go in the army. I think at 18? Is that what it is? As soon they did their trip to the army, they went to India.  And some of them had studied music and were really accomplished. This one guy was a beautiful sitar player and was also an electric guitarist. But anyway, that trip was so moving to me and so I was in tears almost the whole time. First of all, the people, this little community that invited me, embraced me and took me, were like, the coolest people. They lived like ancient Yogi mystics. Ah not really! They had houses, they had cars and they had kids so not that. But they spent most of their time, you know, going to this stream or under this tree and just spending the day singing and playing music and it was a lifestyle that I haven't gotten away from. And I felt like I had connected with my tribe and then a really crazy thing happened at the concert at the festival. I sang a song for my album Beggars and Saints  Which was a song to lord Shiva. And it starts with this very, I won't say alap because it's not exactly an alap but it's very intense, upper octave, prayer sung in the raga style, and you know, I'd sung it so many times. So, well first of all, the amazing thing was that the whole audience knew my songs. And there were thousands of people there, and that was just crazy to me. And then afterwards, a woman came up to me who was also a performer, a singer. And she said, “Jai, I have to tell you something. You're probably gonna think I'm crazy but I have to share this with you. We listen to that song and we hear it in Hebrew. We hear that your grammar is bad but we're Kabbalahists.”  So in Kabbalah, you know each syllable and each letter is studied and has many different components to it. So she said,  “We hear your song as saying before creation, the great mother lay in the void and she was lonely, so she rolled over and out of her belly came forth creation.” You know, that's not what the words mean in Sanskrit but I was blown away at that. You know Sanskrit and Hebrew are both ancient, ancient, ancient languages. And to have this realization or this feeling that in ancient times these cultures were not separated. They were so connected. And then I said “Well, do other people hear that or is it just you?” Because I was of course pretty skeptical and thought she was a nutcase, right? And she said “No, all of my friends who study Kabbalah, we all have heard that, and that was one of the reasons we fell in love with your music.” And so, that’s wild! Don’t you think?

WM: Yeah, it's almost eerily deep. It's just like, yeah, that connection. I mean, if they're hearing what is intended in one language then theoretically they could hear any old slew of words, but what they're hearing is so connected to something timeless, a timeless idea of creation and sound and its role and the Divine Mother and I mean, it's almost unbelievable, you know. It's wild. JU: Yeah, like when she told me this, I got chills over my whole body. It was something else...

WM: That's, that's very deep.

JU: So I went to Israel subsequently a whole bunch of times. And on that first trip, my friends took me to this town called Tzfat, which is in the mountains in Israel and it's the center of Kabbalah. It was kind of the birthplace of Kabbalah and, you know, we went to the sacred baths and it was a very very powerful day and then we walked back to the car. There were a bunch of little roadside shops. Not shops, stands, kind of, selling trinkets and things. And I saw this little medallion and it had Hebrew lettering on it and I asked my buddy what it was. And he said it's the ancient priestly blessing. From the time of David King David and it's from when the priests once year would stand on the parapets, I guess you could say, of the temple and say this prayer and it was almost like reiki. That God healing energy would come through their hands. And that was super meaningful for me so I put it to music and it's on my album Mondo Rama. The song is called “Shalom” and it’s still one of my favorites of my songs. 

WM: Beautiful. Wow. I want to talk about some of your music specifically now and my favorite album of yours is Monkey. And, you know like, you worked with Don Cherry who is just such a pioneer in what we can call world music. 

JU: Don Cherry was on Footprints, not Monkey. 

WM: Okay, he played on Footprints, and not on Monkey, but he influenced and was a mentor and teacher, so I'm assuming his influence is heard on Monkey even though he's not playing on it.

JU: Yea his influence, I still feel it. 

WM: Yeah. Wow. So how did your meeting with Don Cherry come about and how did that relationship spark?

JU: Well, I was playing in another band. I was playing electric guitar in a band called Peter Apfelbaum Hieroglyphics Ensemble.

Now Peter is one of the geniuses that I know in my life and he lives in New York and we're still very close friends. And he also played saxophone, keyboards and drums on many of my albums. Up until my most recent Roots, Rock, Rama, he did all the horn parts. So we’re good musical friends and he had a band called the Hieroglyphics Ensemble and it was a big band, you know, full horn section, three electric guitars, two drummers, and it was world music/jazz. A lot of African influences and he is a brilliant, brilliant musician. Anyway, he met Don Cherry at a jazz festival. And he invited Don to play on one of his albums. I don't remember which one it was. It was one of Peter's albums. And so Don came to rehearsal, a bunch of times and we struck up a conversation and realized that we had both studied Indian music with the same teacher. Z.M. Dagar from the Dagar brothers family.

WM: Zia Mohideen Dagar the veena player, wow.

JU: Yes, who I studied with for quite a long time and Don had studied with him. And so, suddenly we had a lot in common, and Don was living in San Francisco at the time and Peter and I would go over to his house a lot and just hang out. Don was a beautiful human being. He was also a very troubled human being, you know, he struggled on and off with heroin addiction his whole life. He had times when he was clean and times when he wasn't but he never really got into recovery and it was sad, but that didn't change the fact that he was so compassionate and curious you know like, always wanting to learn something new and immediately digest it and share it with us. With his musical younger friends. Don played on my first album and while it was both Don Cherry and Lakshmi Shankar, sang on my first album. And I think that my quote career unquote was when I made that album. Which, when I made that album, I didn’t even think about a career. I was just thinking like “Oh, am I gonna make an album!” And I got a little backing and I thought no one would ever listen to it. I had no idea that anybody but my close friends would listen to it. But anyway, having Don Cherry on it. And then on the Indian classical side having Lakshmi Shankar on it, basically put me on the map, you know what I mean?

WM: Yeah. 

JU: It was because of them. And Don, oh he played so beautifully and what can I say? You know, Don’s playing was affected by his drug addiction and he had lost his front teeth. Really because of the addiction and he had implants, but with the trumpet, there's so much pressure there, so there were times that he really couldn't play and there were times that he played beautifully. But he's a complete mystic and he was actually a Buddhist and his teacher was Kalo Rimphoche and he was a practicing Buddhist and so for me, you know, having my own history and struggles with addiction... Now people think, “oh, you’re a drug addict, okay he’s fucked up.” Well, that is true for some people of course. But likewise the same for “oh, he's not a drug addict, he's fucked up.” You know people are people, there are many different kinds of people! But Don was a deeply spiritual, deeply compassionate, deeply inspired person. You know, and as I said before, always curious which was so cool, curious about everything. And, he struggled with drug addiction. So he told me that after we recorded Footprints, he told me like several months later, he said that that was his last recording he ever did and he was so happy to have done it with me. On the positive side, how beautiful it was. Because I didn't have much money, I paid him something, but it was certainly not what he was used to or what he deserved… I mean he was quite famous, you know, but he felt really honored to play on it with me and I felt incredibly honored that he played on it with me and then the poignant side being that because of his teeth, he mostly had to stop playing after that. So it was kind of his last recording. He still performed but he did stuff like you know, he played keyboard, he sang, he played percussion. It was really like, his concerts, I did a couple with him, were stream of consciousness. He played melodica but hardly any trumpet because of his condition.

WM: Yeah, that's some great reflections on a great musician and a great person and you know that's coming from the days of the Pagan Love Orchestra. You know, I wasn't really able to see you in action with that group. I was just a kid in Michigan at that time. So I wanted to ask a few questions about the height of the Pagan Love Orchestra, like, where were you guys playing? And what kind of audience, because I guess you were trying to get into the jazz world? And I'm just curious what that stage of your career was like with that group.

JU: I love that band so much. I never thought of myself as a jazz musician. But many of the people in the group were jazz musicians and I felt that I was surrounded by musicians who were far more knowledgeable, and proficient and brilliant than I was! And I felt so lucky that they were excited and wanted to play with me. Our audiences, you know, we went from everything to from playing in bars and bars and nightclubs, to playing festivals and special events at art museums and the Montreux Jazz Festival we play at. Which was a really amazing trip. And we played at this incredible festival in Rio de Janeiro. We never made enough money really to keep it going but we sort of kept it going. Also, when I look back at myself, I was very ambitious at the time. I really thought “this band is so cool!” You know, also we got a lot of amazing reviews and you know, it was the beginning of the whole world music movement. There wasn't much of anything happening like that. I won't say nothing, because there were some world music fusion bands that drew from African music and jazz, but drawing from an Indian well, aside from the Beatles, there really wasn't anything. And you know the bizarre thing is that when I put Footprints out I was completely shocked that it was noticed and became popular all over the world with great reviews and stuff. But then I also look back and I realized that I was very controlling. I don't think I made life happy particularly for the other musicians that were working for me. Well, they were happy we were a good band of happy musicians but in a sense my vision was very fixed. And so I was very strict about telling everybody what they should play. And in retrospect, and that changed, I'm not I'm so not that way anymore but in retrospect, I think we could have even been a thousand times better, because in a way I was limiting the creativity of each of the musicians and they were all so great. Still in all, I'm very very proud of what we did. And then we recorded Shiva Station. Which was probably the most successful of any of my albums ever. And we had a tour planned. And it was all booked, everything was booked, it was completely solid. A U.S. tour, you know and the record company at the very last minute bailed on the tour. And first of all, I was really embarrassed for my musicians. I felt like I had really let them down. I was also really angry and was also drinking a lot at the time. So you know, one of the trademarks of an alcoholic is blaming other people for your misery! [laughter]. But I was very disappointed. And at that point... The band kind of disbanded. But there were no bad vibes amongst the musicians. We're all friends, one or two of them I'm a little out of touch with. But mostly we're all connected. They have played on almost all of my albums. And so it wasn't like the band broke up because we couldn’t stand each other or anything. We loved each other and still do, we’re good friends. But the disappointment and the financial, kind of like, inability to make it work, I just felt like I was beating my head against the wall. So I sadly let it go. You know, we did a concert last year. We all got back together. It was a couple of different people but most of the same people. Oh no, it was two years ago! 2020 doesn’t count.  It was in Berkeley at a really nice venue, Freight and Salvage. And we didn't have any rehearsal! We had like separate sectional rehearsals because there was no way that we could all get together at the same time because people were coming from different parts of the country. So the performance was definitely shaky. But we had such a good time and the vibe was so great and the audience was so happy. It was sold out. And, you know, just to say that we're still very connected. And I never feel like, “okay, the Pagan Love Orchestra is done.” And I always feel like it's way in the back burner and you never know when the situation might come where we can regroup. Everybody feels that way about it. Everyone's got their own rich careers. Anyway, so when that happened, I was really depressed but then, out of the blue I started getting all these requests from small places to come and lead and teach kirtan. And up into that time, you know, kirtan was my practice, my home practice, this is what I did, you know? But it wasn’t often that I did it in public. A little here and there but you know, it was just my private thing. And then, you know the cliche “when one door is closed, another door is open”? So, that’s kind of what happened and so I moved into it very tentatively. First of all, with Pagans, I was singing, but I had so much support. You know, my voice was one of the lead instruments but it wasn't the only lead instrument. It was like the attention was on everyone, it was just such a band, rather than like a soloist with a band supporting it. We were really a band and suddenly I’m leading kirtans... But it was scary for me and I also didn't want to assume any kind of mantle of being a spiritual teacher. It’s just abhorrent to me that anyone would look at me as such. But on the other hand, it gave me, you know, the opportunities kept growing and it's something I love. And gradually I became... I'm still nervous in front of people when I sing, I mean I just still am but I began to really appreciate and love these small, really small events where I could share kirtan with people. And it was awesome and then it became really the main thing of my musical life. Well, it was the main thing of my spiritual life and then it became the main thing of my public life.

WM: Yeah, you touched on something exactly that I was curious about. Because it was Daniel Paul who mentioned that kirtan was really just your personal devotional practice and then like you said, that time when The Pagan Love Orchestra kind of went on hold and then you started getting these calls for, you know, this unexpected type of performance [kirtan] and was that like artistically challenging? Like, did you have a conflict of… I understand you're shy with your voice, which by the way, as someone who sees you perform, I would never know this. This is kind of what's fun about having a conversation. But were you, like in an artistic alignment? Like, “I want to share kirtan with people at these types of small concerts?” Or was that something you kind of had to grow into as well?

JU: No, artistically I was there. I mean when I say “there” I'm not saying, artistically I was great or something. But artistically I was comfortable because I had been doing this in my home, really since even before I went to India, you know since I was seventeen or something. Singing kirtan with the harmonium and leading kirtan with a small group, not on stage, but just in private. You know, I was very comfortable on an artistic level and I always approached kirtan very creatively music-wise, you know. Like especially with Daniel [Paul], often he would turn to me in the middle of a kirtan and say “okay, make up a new melody now, just make something up.” And so I kind of have to thank Daniel for that whole concept of making a melody in front of people. But that became sort of, you know, a big part of the joy of sharing kirtan; it was completely creative practice. I didn't have all the supporting orchestration and sounds. But at that point, I was actually happy to simplify musically. But psychologically, it was a big challenge. As I was saying you know, I would sometimes be very terrified before [performing]. But with the Pagans, I would go through that but I was also drinking and stuff. And doing whatever I could to kind of subjugate my fear, which by the way, doesn't work. It works for a minute but all of that stuff gets put into a room inside of your soul and finally that room gets so crowded it has to explode and then wow!  But I didn't realize that at the time. But so with the kirtan I did find that after the first song or something, then I felt comfortable. But you know technically it was already very comfortable for me.

WM: I think that's one of the things that I most appreciate about your artistry. That you bring your creative energy and insight and musicality into kirtan and it's still allowed to be kirtan. It's still something that people can sing to. I see how you know, the Pagan Love Orchestra, that was experimental, improvisatory inspired by all kinds of musical traditions. And even though the kirtan is such a smaller ensemble and kirtan by its nature is meant to be, you know, more simple. I still hear such a rich musicality and so it's just been really cool to kind of speak with you from that progression and really affirm something special that you've brought to the world of kirtan.

JU: Thank you. Thank you for saying it. Well in India, there's so many different kinds of kinds of kirtan and in the villages the melodies are usually very simple and repetitive but what you hear in the village is this incredible groove, you know, it's more groove than any of the funkiest rock/soul music ever heard! You know, the dholak players or the mridanga players and cymbals. But the melodies are usually very simple and the singers are rough, you know, untrained, rustic. But there's also this whole tradition of classical singers or maybe we'd say light classical singers, I guess, in India singing kirtan with magnificent voices and very complex melodies, you know, it's for a different audience. It's for more sophisticated and when I say sophisticated I don't mean better or worse, I mean just like a more sophisticated audience.

WM: It’s so wonderful speaking with you Jai, I just never would have guessed that you're somebody who was shy with your voice, and that it was raga music that brought out that voice and now here we are in a global pandemic and you sing by yourself, from your living room, every week, and I think it's a fascinating story of the life of a musician from your young hippy days to releasing an album that gained international recognition and here we are today, you're still sharing this music, and for our listeners what is the best way for them to find access to your live streams to your work to stay connected with you in these times?

JU: Well, the best is my website JaiUttal.com. I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram and another platform you might know of called Patreon. Patreon is based on the ancient system of patronage where people pledge a certain amount of money to me every month. Usually it's $1, you know, I've tried to keep it very low. So then over the course of each month I post unique videos and all kinds of stuff but my website has it all. You know, and the live streams come from a different link but that link is on my website. On the live streams I play harmonium, I play guitar, I play banjo and we've also been doing our online kirtan camps. But all the information is on my website. I do want to mention something before we close, which is bringing me so much joy. My son is 15, and he's a passionate, passionate, musician. He plays keyboards, he doesn't sing yet, he might not, but I got a feeling that the voice is gonna burst out after a while. But he plays beautifully, you know he's into 60’s and 70’s rock. Like his favorite right now is the Allman Brothers and Leon Russell. And what a joy it is to hear him playing and practicing and jamming. He’s got a band they've been together since the fifth grade. Right now one of the mothers of one of his bandmates tested positive for COVID, so it's temporarily on hold. But yeah, it's just awesome, you know? And I never pushed. He was interested in music and he started piano when he was quite young, but he never practiced, you know, and it was always a push and pull for me. Should I push him or should I not? And I decided, he is having so much fun with it as it is. But I wouldn't push it. And now he's just playing, playing and playing. I love that! It makes me so happy.

WM: It’s beautiful to share that, you know, it's such a weird time but the joy of family and having that experience as a father and parent. It's clear to me that it just brings you so much love and joy and yeah, I'm glad that you shared that. This is something to be positive about is our family and our loved ones and the people in our lives. You know, whether they're in our home or we have to FaceTime them or whatever. But it sounds like this is keeping you inspired and positive through these kind of weird times.

JU: I think it's really important. Well first of all, I feel very lucky with our family, my wife and my son. You know, of course we have our moments, you know, who doesn't? But we're really, really, really a strong love team. But I want to encourage everyone, including myself, because I slack off on this, but it's so important for us to reach out to our friends and our loved ones. Over phone or zoom or whatever and keep the connections going. It's easy to get lazy about that and feel a little down about being isolated but the way to not be isolated is to stay connected and that was one of the impetuses for the live stream concerts. Because they're not a financial, we charge a little, we charge $11. And sometimes we have 15 people, and we pay 30% to our tech person. So it's not like it's a moneymaker although there have been times where we've had 200 people which was really cool. But it's more about the spirit of staying connected and I find it so important. It's also helped me because I plan what I'm going to sing and I focus and I practice. Because when there's no performance or ever playing or recording, it's easy to also forget about practicing, you know. So the concerts have also helped me focus and keep creating but really the essence of it has been to stay connected and keep the connection with people. 

WM: Well, I commend you for being that example and reminder through your live streams and music and sharing that bit of wisdom for us all as we're all going through this. No matter where we are in the world. Yeah, it's just been such a pleasure connecting with you Jai and speaking about your life and your music. Just stay well and friends if you're curious about joining Jai in his live streams visit his website JaiUttal.com. I'll put that in the show notes as well. Thanks again Jai, it's been such a pleasure.

JU: Thank you, Will. It’s really been a pleasure for me to get to know you and talk with you a little bit.