Cellist To Release Road-Inspired Album

  I  

Cellist Erik Friedlander will release an album insipred by American roots music, his own history as a young guitar player and the open road.

Block Ice & Propane (Skipstone Records) is a throwback to Friedlander’s childhood traveling across the United States with his family in the ‘60s and ‘70s. His father, the photographer Lee Friedlander, would plan journeys around his work and some of his photographs from that time figure in the CD’s packaging.

“Our camper was a thin shelled box sitting on top of a 1966 Chevrolet pickup truck,” Friedlander said in a news release. “Cities, campgrounds, parades, outhouses, wild animals and strange characters suffused in a haze of thousands of hours of highway travel. Writing these pieces put me back in that camper.”

Friedlander’s work on Block Ice, set for release Aug. 14, opened up when he noticed that his first sketches for the project were like finger-picking guitar pieces for the cello. A longtime veteren of New York’s downtown scene, Friedlander has backed John Zorn, Laurie Anderson, Courtney Love and the Mountain Goats.

For more information, see www.blockiceandpropane.com.



  • Jack_DeJohnette_by_Steve_Sussman.jpg

    ​Jack DeJohnette boasted a musical resume that was as long as it was fearsome.

  • Don_and_Maureen_Sickler_by_Richard_Halterman_copy_2.jpg

    Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.

  • Trio_aRT_courtesy_Trio_aRT_copy_3.jpg

    Trio aRT with its avalanche of instrumentation: from left, Pheeroan akLaff, Scott Robinson and Julian Thayer.

  • KurtElling_6.2.25_by_ElliotMandel-REV-6.jpg

    “Think of all the creative people I’m going to meet and a whole other way of thinking about music and a challenge of singing completely different material than I would have sung otherwise to my highest level in dedication to the moment,” Elling says about his Broadway run.

  • Pat_Metheny_Side-Eye_III_Jimmy_Katz.jpg

    Pat Metheny will perform with his Side-Eye III ensemble at ​Big Ears 2026 in Knoxville, Tennessee, next March.


On Sale Now
November 2025
Gary Bartz
Look Inside
Subscribe
Print | Digital | iPad