Matt Jenson was born with music running through his veins. He grew up in the back woods of New Hampshire and recalls what it was like, “We had a TV but barely any reception so, I think I was among the very last generation of Americans who’s early life wasn’t dominated by the video and the computer. Instead I went fishing, built tree houses and helped raise the chickens and pigs my parents had as hobbiest farmers. We took frequent trips to Boston to visit my extended family and it was there that I was exposed to many different styles of music on the radio. My parents, although supportive of my musical interests, were not at all musically inclined. I can remember having a burning desire for music, but I didn’t know what exactly it was that spiked my interest the most. My years in Jr. highschool and highschool were spent in a near desperate search for a certain sound, a certain style of music.” One day when receiving some extra help from a highschool english teacher who happened to be playing Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock solo piano duets on the stereo, part of Matt’s fate was sealed! It wasn’t till he heard Bill Evans and Thelonius Monk, shortly thereafter, that he decided on a career in music and began studying the piano seriously. At the same highschool Matt befriended a couple of students who were from NYC and brought with them recordings of Parliament, James Brown and Rick James and POW, another unearthing took place; funk and soul music. Jenson spent the remainder of his highschool career and the entirety of his undergraduate days trading off between music studies and his obsession with national class collegiate athletics, bicycle racing and crew.

Shortly after graduation from college Matt made the decision to pursue music giving up the possibility of taking his career as an athlete to the professional level. He was accepted into the graduate level jazz studies program at the New England Conservatory of Music and completed his formal music training there in 1991 earning a masters degree. While at the Conservatory 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's playing 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 Seacoast, NH area. This group received two awards form the local newspapers' readers' poll in 1998 and 1999 and continues to perform in the Boston and Seacoast NH areas.

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. Like his partner in the Rebel Tumbao project, Mr. José Claussell, Matt was also taken by storm once he heard Palmieri. For Matt, Eddie's music, his bands and his piano playing "shook me to the core.” Although Matt didn’t understand the lyrics (and the fact that they were so deep) at the time, the music mirrored that tremendous depth and it was like a magnet of the soul for him. To this day Matt maintains a friendship with the Maestro and has performed with Conrad Herwig, Mr. Palmieri's trombonist.

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 band, but, with such broad musical interests and talents, and a disposition quite opposed to being defined by any narrow stylistic (cultural, religious, or political) category, to become a pure reggae musician was not in his destiny. Matt has always been one to blaze his own trail.

The Fall of 2001 Matt joined the faculty at Berklee College of Music teaching studio piano and a Latin piano lab. 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 a fellowship grant from Berklee which funded an amazing research trip to Jamaica (...he now regularly visits the island...) 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! February of 2006, Matt was invited by none other than Rita Marley herself to be a guest speaker at the Africa Unite 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 concert events and also auditioned young Ghanaian musicians to receive scholarships to Berklee's 5-Week Summer program!

Now, at the mid-point of his musical development, Matt is taking the raw material of his study of so many musical styles and life experiences and honing them into a sculpted form. His first attempt at this resulted in a recording of his 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.