As promised, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker magazine, connected a pre-1500s New-World dance form to Bob Dylan – and a whole lot more.

Ross certainly has the credentials to discuss classical music. He started listening to classical music as a child and started his music collection at age 10, buying his first classical LP: Anton Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony. He has been the classical music critic for The New Yorker since 1996.

His first book, “The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century,” was a national bestseller and The New York Times chose it as one of the 10 best books of 2007.

Ross did not discover pop music until he was 20. Still, he has become quite versed in pop, blues, folk and jazz. He wrote Kurt Cobain’s obituary for The New Yorker. He talked about his love for his the shuffle function on his iPod, where he can mix up all the genres of music he has stored there. 

Not that Ross is a fan of the idea of genres, as he stated in last week’s interview on SacramentoPress.com.  Music is music to him.

Ross’s latest work, “Listen to This,” highlights some of the best essays written during his tenure at The New Yorker.

His presentation Monday evening at the Crest Theatre centered on the second chapter of “Listen to This,” titled “Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues: Bass Lines of Music History.” This chapter is entirely new, versus the other ones adapted from previous New Yorker articles.

In person, Ross is rather low-key but very charming. Although it is obvious that he is very intelligent and knowledgeable, he does not come across as a know-it-all. He comes across like a friend who wants to share something interesting he knows you might enjoy.

He has a quiet, wry sense of humor. It was easy to see that Ross enjoyed it when the audience laughed at one of his amusing musical connections or ironic observations of the classical music scene.

When discussing the common lines that show up in so many types of music, he stated that “the nature of artists is to take something familiar and make it strange.”

Ross was asked what he would predict would be enduring music that is being created now. He replied that he couldn’t. “As a critic, I am drawn to and write about what affects me now.”

In regards to the difficulty of writing about music and having the reader hear the music, he spoke of what might be in the future for electronic readers: “Touch the page, hear the music.”

As a casual classical music listener, I found it much easier to understand what Ross was trying to communicate in “Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues: Bass Lines of Music History” by listening to the sound clips he played.

Ross supplies audio clips, an iTunes playlist and glossary of terms on his Blog to assist the reader of “Listen to This.” There are lots of other items on Ross’ “The Rest is Noise” blog of interest to music aficionados.

Ross successfully demonstrated the common bass line that runs through “Chim Chim Cheree” from “Mary Poppins,” The Beatles’ “Michelle,” The Eagles’ “Hotel California,” Dylan’s “Ballad for a Thin Man” and then all the way back to a Renaissance lament, much to the enjoyment of the California Lectures audience. 

Instead of a the usual preview lecture for Alex Ross there were two “opening acts.” The first was Julian Dixon, Principle Tuba for Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra and lecturer at Sacramento State and Susan Lamb Cook is Cellist for Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra and artist affiliate at UC Davis. Cook spoke for a few minutes about her lifetime of performing classical music. She then played some Bach solo on the Cello.

Dixon then spoke about the importance of introducing classical music to children at a young age and the value of them learning to play an instrument. He then delighted the audience with a tuba solo.

The second opening act were musicians from the Sacramento Youth Symphony. They were Ariana Fong, Amy Miller, and Roshena MacPherson on violin and Gabriel Ehrlich on cello. They did a great job playing several accessible classical numbers.

Next up for California Lectures:
THOMAS MCGUANE
In conversation with Pam Houston
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Crest Theatre | 7:30 p.m.
The renowned author of ten novels, three works of non-fiction, two short story collections and numerous screenplays.