Yes, THAT Skunk Baxter. Former lead guitarist for Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers.
Look how he turned out:
A couple of comments on this terrific video.
- I just loved Baxter talking — as though he were John Robb — about the OODA Loop: observe, orient, decide, act. His riffs on improvisation and Japanese work circles were also illuminating. But they’re merely table setters.
- The core of this video — WHICH RUNS FROM 36:44 to 44:45 — features Baxter’s discourse on music, vibrations and frequency where he starts with jazz, proceeding to how music makes us feel good; to his working with Charles Townes who invented the laser; to Townes’ book on the CONNECTION BETWEEN THEORETICAL PHYSCIS AND GOD; to a talk Townes gave on this that CHANGED BAXTER’S LIFE; to Townes’ idea that the human spirit HAS A SET OF COHERENT OSCILLATIONS; to the glue that holds together EVERYTHING in the universe — including space and subatomic particles — viz. VIBRATIONS AND FREQUENCY; to Baxter’s realization that MUSIC IS ALSO A SET OF COHERENT OSCILLATIONS; to the connection between a) music touching us so deeply and b) the molecular structure of our bodies GLUED TOGETHER BY DIFFERENT FREQUENCIES; to human beings as “VERY SOPHISTICATED SENSOR PACKAGES;” to the linear vibration path of “no vibrations” to pure energy; TO THE TRANSITION DOWN THE LINEAR VIBRATION PATH TO HEAT; to the heat vibrations getting so fast that THEY THEN PRODUCE COLOR; to the movement higher and higher in the frequency spectrum into gigahertz, radars and radio waves; back to Charlie Townes’ assertion that WE ARE ALL COHERENT VIBRATIONS ON A LINEAR SCALE FROM ZERO TO PURE ENERGY; TO WHY MUSIC MOVES US BECAUSE THE MOLECULES, ATOMS AND SUBATOMIC PARTICLES THAT MAKE UP OUR BODIES ARE HELD TOGETHER BY VIBRATIONS.
PLEASE WATCH THE ENTIRE VIDEO. IT’S A TOUR DE FORCE SHOWCASE OF RENAISSANCE TALENT THAT OTHERS MOST SURELY POSSESS; THOUGH EQUALING BAXTER’S UNLIKELY TRANSITION IS SOMETHING THAT FEW WILL ACHIEVE.
Tudor Place 