Ben Leinbach

Jai Uttal, one of the West’s foremost voices of India’s kirtan chant tradition, and multi-instrumentalist Ben Leinbach gather together their most loved recordings. Sequenced as an unfolding musical celebration, here are favorites of both the artists and their fans. Lifeline spans a decade of collaboration that reflects the myriad faces of kirtan and beyond—ranging from unadorned, primordial chant to layered, sacred sound immersions. It’s a musical odyssey that inspires us to soar—upward, outward, and into the radiant heart of the Divine. Co-produced by Jai Uttal and Ben Leinbach.

Putumayo presents Yoga is a 2010 compilation of meditative music you may use during your yoga routines or simply for relaxation purposes. This was released by Putumayo World Music.

A serene and relaxing album by Putumayo, a soothing collection of songs for yoga, meditation and relaxation. One of the few Putumayo CD that exceeds 60 minutes. Adopted by millions of people around the world, yoga provides a vehicle for greater health and spiritual awareness. This is one of the best albums around for yoga practicionners, full with music from all around the world that has the power to quiet and relax. Enjoy.

This collection of mantras and chants by some of devotional music's greatest voices is a sonic wonder - a warm, enveloping, deeply comforting listening experience. Pristinely recorded, diverse instrumentation sparkles with luminous dimension around the voices - which include Jai Uttal, Donna DeLory, Ben Leinbach, Krishna Das, Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band, David Newman, and Wah!, to name a few.

Yoga is Putumayo’s first CD release featuring songs selected to accompany yoga practice and serve as a relaxing soundtrack for daily life. Rooted in ancient Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions, the practice of yoga has evolved over the past 5,000 years. Adopted by millions of people around the world, yoga provides a vehicle for greater health and spiritual awareness. Music has long had a close relationship with yoga, particularly in the Bhakti tradition, which incorporates musical chants into its practice…..

Music for yoga is such a cliché that you could slap that moniker on a Barry Manilow CD and have it sold as a soundtrack for Downward Facing Dog pose. Yoga music has become a made-to-order commodity, and rarely attains the level of art. The title Music for Yoga and Other Joys doesn't bode well, but then, it has Jai Uttal, a veteran of world fusion going back 15 years and a devotee of kirtan singing teaming up with multi-instrumentalist Ben Leinbach for a series of extended improvisations. Leinbach creates a shifting back drop of chilled, Indian-derived grooves and textures like liquid mercury dipped in a fractal swirl. It's a perfect modal backdrop for Uttal, who improvises freely on an Indian stringed instrument called the dotar, electric guitar, and even banjo. Pieces like the 26-minute "Govinda" extend in a free fall until a rhythm loop drops in. Uttal swaps to a fuzzed out electric guitar solo that eventually merges into an improvised kirtan, his voice coiling in note-bending spirals like soul singing from the east. This may be music for yoga, but it's the other joys that will keep you coming back.

German-born Deva Premal is a certified diva of the new age, having traversed the requisite Eastern spiritual paths, communing in Indian and following the late guru Bhaghwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho. While her last CD, Dakshina, had a bit more of a pop-Enyaesque sensibility, Moola Mantra is a much more meditative affair as Premal sings a single, 15-word Sanskrit mantra over the course of six lushly smooth Indian fusion arrangements. The disc is something of a mantra super session, with kirtan crooner Jai Uttal playing dotar, Nepalese bansuri flute player Manose, pianist Kit Walker, sitarist Peter Van Gelder (who played with Grace Slick and the Great Society) and esraj player Benjy Wertheimer.

It used to be that musical categories were fairly well defined, and that most songs fit neatly into little boxes called genres. However, in recent times, it seems that the lines have become blurred and the boundaries breached, so that just about any style can be merged with any other style to create some of the most innovative blends imaginable. A perfect example of this is the latest release by Canadian singer/ songwriter Lea Longo, entitled Songs Of A Siren. Here she combines her love of jazz and pop standards with the spirituality of mantra and kirtan chanting to provide a completely different twist on the East meets West concept.