About Matt
Matt Jenson was born with music running through his veins. After years of study as a young child and teenager, he completed his formal training when he received a Masters degree in Jazz Composition and performance from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston (1991). While there he studied with jazz greats Dave Holland, Ran Blake and especially with pianist Geri Allen.
After graduation from the Conservatory his ’street’ training began, first with a deep involvement with the blues. For many years he concentrated on soul, blues and rock influenced piano and Hammond organ, working with such greats as Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters, legendary R&B singer Johnny Adams, Mighty Sam McClain, Cyril Lance, Johnny Neel, and Julien Kasper. Matt is never far away from the blues.
Although blues and jazz were Matt’s first musical loves, the call to Afro-Cuban styles has always occupied a strong current in his musical demeanor. In answer to this, he began a courtship with Latin music in 1995 studying the rhythmic basics of Salsa styles on a set of used timbales. Later Matt returned to the piano and joined the Worcester (MA) based 17 piece Salsa/Plena Orquesta, Los Pleneros del Coco. In 1998, Matt assembled top notched Latino musicians from Boston to form the popular Latin dance septet, Combo Sabroso, playing to packed houses in the Boston, Maine and Seacoast, NH areas. The group continues to perform on a regular basis regionally playing clubs, small festivals, and special private parties and weddings.
A highlight of Matt’s involvement in this style came when he was selected to partake in the week-long Salsa Meets Jazz seminar at Goddard College (VT) with Eddie Palmieri and his Octet during the summer of 2001. Matt maintains a friendship with the Maestro and has performed with Conrad Herwig, trombonist with the Eddie Palmieri group and is currently working extensively with Mr. Palmieri’s timbale player, José Claussell. (see below)
Bob Marley was a simmering musical vibration in Matt’s early years, but it wasn’t until a trip to Belize (during his graduate school tenure) that he became OBSESSED! For years Matt absorbed all that he could about Marley’s life and music because Marley crystallized so much of what Matt feels, not only as a musician, but as a keen observer of socio-political events and a life-long drive to raise human consciousness so as to make the world a better place. He began writing his own reggae compositions, rehearsing his own bands, but, with such broad musical interests and talents, and a disposition quite opposed to being defined by any narrow stylistic (cultural, religious, political) category, to become a pure reggae musician was not in his destiny. Matt has always been one to blaze his own trail.
His first attempt at the merging of musical interests came in the form of what he calls, “Acid Reggae.” He recorded a CD of original material (1997) entitled “One Drops, Spirituals and Riddim,” where he infuses the one drop reggae style with a heartical jazz influence. On this recording he introduces himself as a singer as well. The development of that project now stands with the Acid Reggae Xperience Band which has grown into a neo-dub group combining rock, blues and jazz influenced soloing/arranging over reggae and neo-soul grooves and incorporates plenty of experimentation with electronic textures.
The Fall of 2001 Matt joined the faculty at Berklee College of Music in the piano department, teaching studio piano and a Latin piano lab. (Matt’s teaching philosophy) Matt’s calling to Marley presented him with an amazing opportunity to help further the legacy of that musical visionary which resulted in his creating a performance studies class entitled, “The Music and Life of Bob Marley” which has become a smash-hit at the college and at other locations in the US where he teaches it. His involvement with the class has presented him with some rare opportunities such as partaking in performances with Judy Mowatt, the publishing of two articles on the class in The Beat Magazine and a piece in Berklee Today (Berklee’s Alumni Magazine). Matt received of a grant from Berklee for an amazing research trip to Jamaica where he met and played with many who knew and worked with Marley including Chinna Smith, Neville Garrick, David Madden, Skill Cole, Mortimer Planno, Sharon Marley! Also, Matt was invited by Rita Marley to be a guest speaker at the Africa Unite 2006 (February) event in Ghana, West Africa celebrating Bob Marley’s 61st birthday. While there he gave a talk on Marley and education at the symposium associated with the massive event and also auditioned young Ghanaian musicians to receive scholarships to Berklee’s 5-Week Summer program!
Lastly, Matt has now turned most of his attention to what is an obvious direction for him: he has embarked on the pursuit of a project that merges Marley’s music with Afro-Cuban arranging along side Matt’s brilliant original compositions, naming the endeavor “Rebel Tumbao.” (Rebel “GROOVE”) With this project Matt is bringing forth his statement as an artist to the larger public, a ‘coming out’ as it were. He has formed a close relationship with José Claussell (timbalero for Eddie Palmieri) and the two of them are now working tirelessly to bring this inspired project to an international audience!
Matt Jenson Biography
