Cellist Erik Friedlander recalls having to win a massive battle with apprehension to begin thinking about doing a totally improvised, solo album. "But finally, it fit in with everything else," he says, "and I thought it would make a good marker of the time." The result is a new release, "Maldoror," which is made up with music that will be the centerpiece of his concert today in Garfield. But it is only part of the works that will be shown at the concert, which also will include pieces written by saxophonists Arthur Blythe and John Zorn and guitarist Carlos Santana. That menu of music reflects the work of Friedlander, who has performed with jazz sax wiz Joe Lovano and trumpeter Dave Douglas and in the ethno-improv band Masada. He also performs with Grains of Paradise, a 10-piece string orchestra, and his group Topaz, which he has called "a good bar band." As a result, his work onstage and on record takes constantly different forms. "Joe Lovano once said to me, 'Keep 'em guessing,'" he says. "I guess I do that." He has to do a little of that with these concerts, too, he says, as he tries to discern what his audience's interests are. When he decided to do a solo tour related to this album, he didn't think it would be functional to try to re-create the musical birth of the disc. For the album, he says, he and producer Michael Montes got together in a studio, read poems by Isidore Ducasse, a 19th-century poet, and then the cellist improvised musical versions of them. "I thought: Do people want to see me read the poems?" he says. "No. And they don't want to hear me read them, either. That's really pretentious." So he will do new versions of some of the tunes he created for the album. He says he will blend that with the other works as seems fit. As a result, each of the 11 concerts can be different, he says, depending on reaction of the listeners. The album came about when Montes kept urging Friedlander to do a solo album, the cellist says. They were in Europe between tours with Topaz and trumpeter Douglas, he adds, so they went into a studio in Berlin and recorded the album in about an hour. It sort of fit into that "keep 'em guessing" approach to work, which always is a part of the cellist's lifestyle. Besides work on this solo tour, he also is planning a trip through Poland in May with an all-Polish version of the Grains of Paradise band. He says he also is considering putting together a string quintet from that group. And he is seeking a label for a new album from his Topaz group. Friedlander sounds a little happy to be finding outlets for his various jobs in a time in which many cultural opportunities are "chilling out." For instance, he points out, German arts presenters once were great at backing a wide range of music. Now they have an additional 30 percent tax to pay when they use foreign performers. So the scene has dried up a little. "I'm just glad to get 11 gigs in 12 days for this solo tour," he says. Additional Information:

Details

Erik Friedlander When: 8 p.m. today Admission: $10 Where: Garfield Art Works, 4931 Penn Ave. Details: (412) 361-2262

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