Steve Cardenas is one of those players you’re probably more familiar with from his stellar work with others. He’s been an important part of bands led by Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, Steve Swallow and Ben Allison, worked as a sideman with singers like Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux, Rebecca Martin and Richard Julian, in duet with Jim Campilongo and quartet on Anthony Wilson’s Seasons: A Song Cycle For Guitar Quartet. He has released a handful of albums as a bandleader, as well, and has a new one, Blue Has A Range, due in July (you can pre-order the album via Bandcamp). Steve also keeps busy as an educator — he is on the faculty at the New School’s School of Jazz and Contemporary Music, he recently joined the Guitar Mastery Intensive team and he’s co-author of the Thelonious Monk Fakebook. In the video above Steve shares a couple of tunes, “Aerial” and “Fern’s Guitar,” and tells us the story of that titular instrument, a 1959 Martin 000-21 purchased new by his partner Monica’s mother, Fern.

#FJFest is the Fretboard Journal‘s way of staying connected during these difficult times: Expect to see never-before-seen shop tours from guitarmakers, unique music performances and a ton of beautiful instruments on a daily basis.

Like what we’re doing? We could use your support: Get a digital subscription to the FJ for just $30 and we’ll send you our two most recent issues immediately as PDFs, on the house. Simply click here to get started.