Help Matt out of a Jam

My good friend Matt Jenson recently fell ill and needed to be hospitalized. He needs your help. Even though he has health insurance, the bills he incurred and a significant amount of lost work threaten his financial security. Matt is a wonderful, generous person who has been creating beautiful music with heart as a pianist, composer, arranger, singer and educator for his entire life. My wife and I have seen him perform countless times and are always amazed by his enthusiasm and musical creativity. Through the years we have become great friends as well.

Despite a longtime commitment to his craft, a dedicated and disciplined work ethic, and a practical focus on financial independence, Matt and many other musicians and artists unfortunately are not fairly compensated for their valuable contributions to our society.

Please read the details of his story below, as recounted by Matt, and I hope you can join me in helping him get out of this difficult situation by making a donation today.

Matt's story, in his own words.

My name is Matt Jenson and I’ve spent my life committed to being a musical artist (a pianist, composer, arranger and singer) and later a music educator most notably as a part-time piano faculty member at Berklee College of Music for 22 years.

On May 21 (2023) I returned home from a day of enjoying the emerging spring in New England and within a space of about 15 minutes I collapsed on my couch with chills, sweats and utter fatigue. Additionally, the next 24 hours brought intense body aches. Later that week after some blood work and a CT scan of my pelvis, my doctor ordered me to the ER and it was soon discovered that I had Acute Pyelonephritis which is a bacterial infection causing inflammation of the kidneys. My left kidney had a Staph infection which had spread to some muscles nearby and thankfully nowhere else.

Fortunately, this condition is successfully treated with IV antibiotics and I spent 8 days in the hospital slowly working my way towards health under close supervision to make sure the infection did not develop further and was showing signs of lessening.

Matt's time in the hospital (video).

My team of doctors saw it fit to let me go on June 9 setting me up with home nurse care and instructions to administer the antibiotics myself, every 8 hours possibly through mid-July. I’m amazed at how much ‘heavy artillery’ has to be engaged to knock out this infection!

And now on to discussing why this Crowdfunding campaign has been launched.

To put it succinctly: Since the onset of this experience, I lost a significant amount of work including a number of paid performances, private music lessons and other gigs. As a result, I will be unable to pay all of my bills and living expenses for the next few months. Even with health insurance that covers most of the expenses of my hospital stay, I still am in a difficult financial situation.

I feel compelled to use this personal misfortune to illustrate a larger cultural ill faced by many artists, especially here in the United States. The silent and often lonely work artists do is sadly not considered valuable enough to be paid fairly and many if not most creative projects pay a pittance and often result in net losses. Rarely are artists able to make a living wage solely through their creative efforts.

I invite you to read this article “Culture Isn’t Free ” for a more complete picture of the plight faced by artists in the USA.

My life story falls directly in line with what this article illuminates. I have not been able to earn enough through my work to build up ‘rainy day’ savings.

I have committed my life to music because I love it and from the word go there was no other path for me. Along the way I have been deeply inspired by the truth-telling musicians who came before me and also those who knew how to make you DANCE with a huge smile on your soul. Many, if not most people LOVE music, often times on the deepest level imaginable, because it brings joy, soothes pain, heals wounds, and helps create unity. It gets people through very tough times and helps them imagine a better world. It has been my greatest joy in life to share this with others!

I want to thank everyone who has supported me by coming to my shows, listening to my recordings and thank those who have engaged with me in the music learning process. You have been very inspiring to me and are an inseparable part of making my work meaningful.

I deeply appreciate you considering making a contribution and helping me get out of this challenging jam and back to creating and sharing the REAL JAM of life!