Airs Friday, April 8, at 9 p.m. If you're searching the pages and records of jazz history for early and important women instrumentalists, then stop and take note any time you come across the name of Mary Osborne. She started out as a little girl playing violin and guitar on the radio in Depression-era Minot, North Dakota, listening to jazz broadcasts on the radio out of Chicago--then one night she went to a club and heard Charlie Christian play, and her path as a jazz guitarist was set.
Mary Osborne would go on to become a regular on New York City's 52nd Street and record with some of the best artists on the scene, becoming a pioneer for women instrumentalists in jazz. "Mary Osborne: Queen of the Jazz Guitar" features Osborne across the entire arc of her career as a leader and with trumpeter Clark Terry, pianist Mary Lou Williams, saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, pianist Marian McPartland and more.