CHECK OUT this sneak preview video, some rehearsal footage and explanation…

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WELCOME TO my blog and website where you can learn about the various projects I’m working on and bands that I play in:
Rebel Tumbao (AfroLatinRootsReggae)
The Liquid Revolution Band

Also you can link to my involvement in education including my very popular Music and Life of Bob Marley class, Latin Piano Lab and my work as Assistant Professor of piano at Berklee College of Music.

You will find a lot of music on this site that can be accessed in two ways: 1) hit the play button on the player in the upper right hand corner of each page, 2) the site is set up with a ‘one shot’ player (a speaker and play button icon) that I use to drop in pretty much any kind of audio I want including hot-off-the-griddle excerpts of new tunes I’m writing and recording.

Much of my music is influenced by the socio-political happenings of the day and I spend a lot of time thinking about and discussing with friends and colleagues WHAT’s GOING ON as part of a life-long calling I’ve had to revel in the beautiful aspects of life and to continually work towards a deeper understanding of the not so beautiful aspects of how the human race functions. A lot of what I write comes from what I see as our collective inability to put human and environmental welfare before the obsession with material gain and how we continually allow such a tiny minority of people to have such a drastic concentration of power and money.

This is indeed a BLOG site so you’ll see various blog posts on the main page and on various project pages regarding my thoughts and activities. Over on the right, below, I’ve got links to some of the inspiring people out there who are true revolutionary visionaries when it comes to creating and pushing for the desperately needed transformation we need. Also there are a few of my brief writings and my travel blogs.

Don’t forget to sign my mailing list if you dig what you see, hear, read.

1 Love!

After listening to the first few tunes, we realized that this album is reggae for the world. Matt has embraced the art form created years ago by people without a voice and brought it into the bigger, current arena. It’s so difficult to express reactions to music, especially the heartfelt creations of a dear friend. The risk is that our words come across as trite or just not sufficient to relay the emotions. All of what I’m writing is truly genuine, honest, and said with great respect for the incredibly powerful blend and new form Matt’s generated.

From a musical perspective, Matt’s voice and playing sounds great, the entire production is top shelf – tight. He’s gathered some incredible musicians in his fold and the positive chemistry really projects. This is inspirational music with deep impact. And, you just want to dance!!

Listening to Matt’s musical creation is a honor.
- Stephanie Ancona and Neal Chalek

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I LOVE THE ALBUM! This album is like traveling to a small European country, finding a small, high quality coffee shop and ordering a small specialty coffee or espresso. It doesn’t look like much but when you take a sip you realize that it’s POOOOOOOOTENT! There are so many things going on; chord inversions, melodies, nuances, anecdotes and a whole bunch of upfront AND subliminal conscious utterances….this is no one day listen, trust me on that. Well done squire!
- – Amlak Tafari, Yellow Wall Productions and bassist with Steel Pulse
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LOVE your CD. I’m not exaggerating when I say that for me, its the hippest, and all around best reggae album I’ve heard since the great Bob records. Incredible arranging, humor, intelligent social consciousness, singing, vibe. It’s a huge project that you took on, and you hit it out of the park!! Congrats, and it has my vote for reggae album of the decade. Not exaggerating.
- John Funkhouser
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Your presentations are not only professionally superb, but your message is thought provoking inspiring and in my opinion so right on. This last one so hits the head of the nail. How can we have a system based on perpetual expansion and growth on a finite planet is beyond me. Why the right wingers can’t open up to reality is beyond comprehension. Are we the next Atlantis?
I am so thankful to be on your email list. You are a breath of fresh air……clean air.
Thanks
- Malcolm Carnwath
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AMAZING ARTIST ALERT!!! Check out Matt Jenson’s amazing new reggae release. Great tunes, vibe and production on this. I can’t stop playing this CD…it is a pleasure to find an artist of this musical caliber who actively commits his talents towards a powerful social message of positivity, love and living well on the planet. please support this effort, go to his website and buy it! You will love it…here is a clip of how it came together.
- Thaddeus Hogarth (Guitarist on the album)
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Bless Matt! Just want to Ifficially “thank you” and salute you for completing the vision of the Dragonfly Taxi project! I am honored to have been invited to participate in the production of this truly instant classic! Your “song-crafting” skills are surely on par with your instrumental skill level. Your talents are complete and are evident in this recording! I am hopeful that the sheer quality of the contents of this recording will be embraced for what it is; superb! I feel as if I am purposefully hearing the works appear to my ears in deliberate high definition! The mix is lacking nothing! Give thanks for the quality time you invested in making sure that the work is of a “world class” caliber in all aspects of modern music production. On behalf of the 99%’s, I give thanks for the powerful lyrical outcry of the poor and marginally disenfranchised that you share in “Must be Free!” Really, it seems that in all of humankind’s struggle to exist, at some level, money becomes the apparent denominator of who/what is right or wrong, the winner or loser…Every other living thing on earth is free from living in that dynamic except human beings. Finally, give thanks for picking Man up for a ride in the Dragonfly Taxi!
- Tuff Lion (Guitarist on the album)
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Speaking from my heart, Matt’s essence is about DOING. How many people have I heard and seen talk about change in the last forty years?? How many have actually walked the walk, talked the talk, and sung the song?? Not ENOUGH, but to spend a moment in Matt’s company is to FEEL the heart and pulse of that distant “song” coming closer and CLOSER!

DRAGONFLY TAXI sings of groove and life with passion, and speaks of social injustice with vision… But MOSTLY … it
I N S P I R E S us to think, ponder, question, plan, act (as opposed to react), celebrate, breathe, look at what’s REALLY there and actually …
DO SOMETHING!!

Matt Jenson’s music and message is creatively provocative and evocative, and is an intensely profound wakeup call toward our need to MOVE forward and embrace what really matters! The production, compositions, lyrics, musicianship, concept, and individuality all dance with effortless excellence!

This is a project that is at a whole new level of passion, commitment to action, and ARTISTIC VISION!!

Well done, Mr. Jenson.

- Harry Skoler, Professor – Berklee College of Music

Some have predicted that the end of the Mayan Calendar would not harken a disastrous end to the world as we know it, but that instead would herald a new time for human consciousness, a reawakening of humanity and our collective spirit, the true dawning of The Age of Aquarius. At a time where compassion towards one another, and for our shared Mother Earth is so desperately needed, Dragonfly Taxi, from Matt Jenson and The Liquid Revolution, closely echoes what a New Dawn may sound like; a soundtrack and a call to raise our consciousness to a world that could be. Hewn from the spirit of 2011-2012’s Occupy movements, Dragonfly Taxi voices discontent at the current state of affairs, while also way-finding a road we could trod leaving Babylon. And so-inspired, the revolutionary spirit on Dragonfly Taxi is alive and well.

While Matt Jenson’s largely instrumental previous solo release One Drops, Spirituals and Riddim featured him on lead vocals, Dragonfly Taxi sees his role as a writer, vocalist, and band leader, director and arranger even more firmly in place, showcasing his broad range of talent, presence and intent. As the leader of the esteemed Berklee Bob Marley Ensemble, Jenson’s skills are on display, he indeed giving the clinic on reggae music played and produced masterfully, and most importantly still: on reggae music carrying – hittin’ us – with the message.

“Must Be Free” kicks off the ride with rhythmic hits and a sound strikingly reminiscent of Bob Marley’s “Rebel Music.” Instead of the 3:00 herbal roadblock, Jenson’s own nod to reggae’s King, asks about freedom in the face of the insidious system of economic slavery. The theme continues through the tunes “Drop The Line (World Revolution),” “The Material Shuffle,” and “Sure,” which all decry the capitalist “profit-system” with various accents dealing with environment, sustainability, material gain, living in debt and on credit. Liquid Revolution’s deft cover of Marley’s “War” subtly and respectfully updates the tune, and showcases the tight playing, solid rhythm section, snappy horn lines and punchy overall arrangement that fuel the entire Dragonfly Taxi album. On the title track, Jenson and The Liquid Revolution pay homage to another musical icon, Jimi Hendrix, with a “Spanish Castle Magic” infused rocker about free thoughts and free spirits amongst the ideals of the modern-day American dream.

Spirit and Love grace the ethereal floating “Liquid Shiva,” and “Again and
Again” (perhaps the album’s sweetest drop), and give us ample musical evidence that Dragonfly Taxi travels not only roads of progressive revolutionary thought, but also on roads of the heart. Then again, perhaps Love, should we heed it to the fullest, is the greatest revolution of all. “Again and Again,” with a heartbeat reminiscent of “Waiting in Vain,” sweetness and harmonies following suit, keeps me returning for its embrace.

As if this group of songs didn’t already showcase thematic unity, the album – and Dragonfly Taxi is an album in the truest sense of the word, an embodiment of tracks creating the whole – presents a running narrative, in the form of brief interludes between the tracks, delivered with humor, irony, and gentle sarcasm that are at times laugh-out-loud funny. Some of these are rendered by reggae historian and Bob Marley specialist Roger Steffens (one of the best-known non-artist voices in all of reggae), whose tenor also lends to the spoken-word brain food served on “Drop the Line (World Revolution).” The narrative titles are telling, from “GPI [Genuine Progress Indicator],” “Less Is More” and “4 Day Work Week,” to “Marriage of $ and Politics” and “Mother Earth Speaks” (to name a few), all bolstering the overarching theme and concept of Dragonfly Taxi.

Thaddeus Hogarth and veteran reggae guitar great Tuff Lion both add guitar spice to the Dragonfly Taxi lineup. In combination with Matt Jenson’s jazz-infused key lines, Liquid Revolution horns and rhythm section, the musical result is every bit as strong as the album’s anti-capitalist stance.

In this new time, a little bit of luck, love and elbow grease may find The Liquid Revolution seeping its way, flooding into the dark corners of the Capitalist Corporatocracy, seeding and watering the change. It’s is a great start-to-finish journey, a thoughtful and provocative joyride into the heart of forward-thinking possibilities – jump aboard the Dragonfly Taxi!

This is my new solo record: DRAGONFLY TAXI.
Listen to a few excerpts on the player to the right.

Why “Dragonfly Taxi”? I love the Jimi Hendrix tune, “Spanish Castle Magic.” The opening lyrics are, “It’s very far away. It takes about a half and a day to get there, if we travel by my uh, dragon-fly…” I imagined what kind of a dragonfly would be carrying Jimi across the universe and, along with some rhythmic inspiration from Jimi’s song, I wrote a tune called Dragonfly Taxi, in which I express what she (”Ms. Dragonfly Taxi”) might be feeling about life 30 years after Jimi’s time.

Buy the CD: HERE or

“Taking righteous inspiration from the insistent, even hectoring, political reggae of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, Matt Jenson and The Liquid Revolution are not afraid to express their strong progressive stance as they lay on an intense cycle of conscious party jams. Dragonfly Taxi is one step forward for politically engaged reggae in the 21st century.”
– Stephen Davis, author of Bob Marley: Conquering Lion of Reggae.

Matt’s newest recording to date. Released January 1, 2013.

Ya can buy it all over the place: Download it on BandCamp (including digital booklet), buy a physical copy of the CD at CD Baby (and write a review!). And of course there’s iTunes

Check out this video from Rebel Tumbao kickstarter campaign HQ with reports from the California and France fronts!

My “Facebook like” explorations (as well as many other sources) also bring forward an understanding of the things that actually DO work in our society and certainly of the wealth of incredible healthy and positive thinking that’s going on out there!

I’ll cut to the chase and say: DO NOT, DO NOT VOTE FOR MITT ROMNEY and PAUL RYAN!!
VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA, but at the same time do not hold any illusions about him and the entire Democratic party.

A Romney/Ryan win would revert us to, and bolster policies that will destroy the environment faster than we are now, cause further concentration of wealth and power, severely limit women’s rights, and quite likely drive us into another severe economic crash. Here is an article by Daniel Ellsberg (the guy, who in 1973 leaked the Pentagon Papers) that describes my view well: READ IT PLEASE.

If you have a bit more time on your hands read this book by Robert Reich, “Beyond Outrage.” Although he barely mentions the environmental crisis, he does a great job at explaining the meaning of the policies that the ‘regressive right’ want to put in place….and how they are incredibly dangerous.

CLIMATE CRISIS? Was not hurricane Sandy one hell of a wake up call to the US? I mean, look at the timing and location of the thing!!! And still, not a damn peep from B and O on climate change. Wow. If you want an antidote to that, join me at Bill Mckibben’s “Do the Math Tour” at the Orpheum in Boston on 11/15.

Meanwhile, here’s Romney on climate change.

One more time: DO NOT VOTE FOR ROMNEY. VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA!!! And if he’s elected, you can breathe a sigh of relief for about 5 minutes only. After that know that the likelihood that he’ll do much to really strike at the rotten core of corporate domination of….EVERYTHING is quite low and we must put our efforts into bolstering mass movements such as Occupy (hopefully it’ll revive) to really put enough pressure on the system to make significant change.