Florida physicist, engineer, and jazz musician Johnnie Tips made a recording of himself playing a positively sublime improvisation that defies genres. On his Tumblr, he dedicates it to the 99% and writes,
“A personal improv composition while contemplating on the solidarity of natural systems, and the responsibility of people as super-organisms to regenerate and prosper in our quantum, unpredictable universe, where change is constant.”
Listening to this piece one can envision vast landscapes and narrow city canyons. The rolling waves of the collective human experience and its discoveries. The constant drive to create something new yet coexist with our nurturing environment so that others can continue to do just that.
John and I went to New College of Florida together, and I had the privilege of listening to him play at one of the school’s many public pianos on a number of occasions. The fellow could roll out entire compositions like a master storyteller spinning a yarn – and would hold your attention the same way. His other friends and I would then lie on our backs, listening and watching our minds expand under the influence of this musical soma. This video is but a taste of those delicious times, and a glimpse of an undiluted musical genius.
