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Mary Osborne: The Queen of Jazz Guitar · San Joaquin Sound

0:06
This is Jim Lowe, and here we go, taking off
0:09
on an Air Force Reserve Sound Flight. Jazz at
0:12
its best with pianist Elliot Lawrence and the
0:14
Sound Flight All -Stars. Our special guest, the
0:17
distaff genius of jazz guitar, Mary Osborne on
0:20
Sound Flight. Hi, Elliot. Hello, gang. Hi, Elliot.
0:24
Hi, Jim. Mary Osborne, I... Kiss your hand, madame,
0:27
except your guitar seems to be keeping us apart.
0:29
I'll take a rain check, Jim. You know, women
0:31
are mighty rare here on Sound Flight, but then
0:33
Mary Osborne's a mighty rare woman. Housewife,
0:36
mother, jazz star extraordinaire. How many children
0:39
do you have, Mary? Just two, Jim, plus a guitar.
0:42
Well, then paddle that, baby, and let's hear
0:44
it wail. You're listening to the San Joaquin
0:50
Sound Podcast, a podcast about music in Bakersfield
0:54
and the surrounding San Joaquin Valley. I'm your
0:57
host, AJ Rodriguez. This episode is going to
1:02
be about jazz, and we're going to talk about
1:05
Mary Osborne, and today I'm going to interview
1:08
Paul Kearley, who is one of Mary Osborne's students,
1:11
and he knows way more about jazz than I do. Yeah,
1:14
I'm Paul Kearley. I've been playing guitar since
1:18
I was a kid, playing in rock bands and country
1:22
bands and jazz bands. I teach right now up at
1:26
Bakersfield College. I teach the beginning guitar
1:29
class, and I teach basically the jazz guitar
1:32
music majors that are up there. Let me see. I'm
1:35
trying to remember when I met Mary Osborne. My
1:37
mom knew of her. She was with all her friends
1:40
in town. She knew that there was this really
1:42
great guitar player, Mary, in town. And I had
1:45
had lessons when I started, did that for a few
1:48
years, and then wasn't taking lessons anymore,
1:50
just kind of teaching myself. And so she got
1:53
in touch with Mary Osborne at her studio. Took
1:56
me over, and I just started taking lessons. This
1:58
was probably in high school, probably like early
2:00
80s. And I think I took lessons from her about
2:02
two years doing that, and basically just started
2:08
trying to figure out jazz a little bit. And I
2:10
think I had some friends that were listening
2:12
to jazz a lot, so I kind of got interested in
2:15
that towards the end of high school, like mid
2:17
-80s or so. But yeah, I think that's the way
2:20
I was introduced to her. My mom just like...
2:22
Knew she was, there's this great guitar player
2:24
in town and I should take lessons from her. So
2:26
yeah. That's awesome. We're going to move to
2:29
talk about Mary Osborne as a child. She was born
2:33
in Epping, North Dakota on July 17th to Alvin
2:37
Osborne and Estella Rogers Osborne. Her mother
2:41
sang and played the guitar and her father played
2:44
violins. He also made his own violins himself.
2:49
He had a barber shop. and he used that as a place
2:52
for local musicians to gather and play music.
2:56
He was the band leader of a ragtime band. In
2:59
1991, she told the New York Times, I thought
3:03
everybody was a musician until I was 11 years
3:05
old. We had a large family, and everybody could
3:08
play an instrument, but nobody intended to be
3:11
a musician. They tell me one time they found
3:14
me sitting at the piano picking out tunes. I
3:17
was two or three or something. My dad says, I
3:20
think I finally got myself a musician. From then
3:24
on, he just doted on me. He brought me every
3:27
string instrument. She was a musical prodigy
3:30
and a multi -instrumentalist. She tap danced,
3:33
played piano, violin, banjo, ukulele, and even
3:37
sang. And from age 10, she had her own radio
3:41
show all the way up until age 15. When she was
3:45
nine, she got her very first guitar. She stated,
3:48
When I picked that first guitar, that was it.
3:51
I knew that's what I wanted to play the rest
3:53
of my life. She played, quote, country music,
3:57
only we didn't just call it country then. We
4:00
called it hillbilly. She was learning jazz and
4:03
playing jazz violin. She listened to every 78
4:07
jazz record that she could find. She especially
4:10
liked Django Reinhart, Eddie Lang, and Dick McDonough.
4:15
So do you know anything more about those artists?
4:19
Just Django Reinhardt. I listened to him a little
4:21
bit. But yeah, he was at early jazz in the 30s,
4:25
but he was European. So this was jazz happening
4:28
over in France, which was a little different
4:32
kind of vibe to it. It had more like a classical
4:35
sort of bent to it, but it was very much about
4:38
jazz, about improvising. So yeah, Django's stuff
4:41
was really interesting. And at this time, it's
4:43
all acoustic, right? Electric guitars hadn't
4:45
taken over. Right, yeah. A little bit later,
4:49
in 1939, Mary Osborne went to see the Al Trent
4:53
Sextet at a club called The Dome in Bismarck,
4:56
North Dakota. Charlie Christian was playing with
4:59
the band, and his performance absolutely blew
5:01
her mind. She told the New York Times, The only
5:05
electric guitar I knew of was the Hawaiian guitar.
5:07
I'd listen to the jazz guitarist all the times,
5:10
but they all played acoustic. But here was Charlie
5:13
Christian playing Django Reinhart's St. Louis
5:15
Blues note for note, but with an electric guitar.
5:18
It was the most startling thing I'd ever heard.
5:22
After the show, she approached Charlie and said,
5:25
I heard you play Django's chorus on St. Louis
5:28
Blues. Charlie Christian was excited that she
5:31
recognized this and invited her to jam, teaching
5:34
her some jazz guitar, and he became a mentor
5:36
to her. He unfortunately died of tuberculosis
5:39
when he was 25 in 1942, but until then, they
5:43
had kept in touch. As far as Charlie Christian,
5:47
can you explain the significance of him to jazz
5:49
guitar? Yeah, I guess. Well, I guess going back
5:54
to that idea of like the, she was talking about
5:56
the Hawaiian guitar. There was a, the lap steel
5:59
was what some companies were making. It was electric
6:02
guitar, but it was a lap steel. And apparently
6:04
Charlie Christian. wanted to be louder when he's
6:07
playing with a big band, so he had somebody put
6:09
a pickup from a lap steel into his regular acoustic
6:12
guitar. So that's kind of how that first came
6:15
about from what I hear. As far as his influence,
6:18
I mean, the guitar with a big band, any kind
6:21
of a large ensemble, they would be playing rhythm,
6:24
and it wasn't very loud acoustically. So when
6:27
you put... pickup in it, you could solo and people
6:30
would hear you. You sound like a trombone or
6:32
like a saxophone or something. You can be just
6:35
as loud. So that meant that guitar players could
6:39
be a lead voice all of a sudden. So that's, yeah,
6:42
that's huge. Yeah. Mary Osborne said, Charlie
6:45
Christian came out with guitar jazz solos. So
6:48
great with that sound and everything. Phrased
6:51
like a horn. I knew I wanted to do that. And
6:54
I thought I might be able to. So after this,
6:57
she went out and she bought an $85 Gibson ES
7:00
-150, just like Charlie Christian played. ES
7:03
stood for Electric Spanish. It was a hollow body
7:07
guitar. It had F -holes, just like a violin.
7:10
There were no cutaways. And it had a bar pickup,
7:13
which was a huge improvement over the previous
7:15
Piazzo pickups. She even paid a friend $45 to
7:19
build her an amplifier. And that's when she joined
7:22
a trio led by Winifred McDonald. They had a lot
7:26
of success and toured all around, but when the
7:31
band was playing in New York City, all three
7:33
women each met someone that they would marry,
7:36
and the band ended up breaking up. And Mary Osborne
7:40
married Ralph Scafidi in 1942, who was a jazz
7:44
trumpeter who was an incredible player himself.
7:47
Did you ever meet Ralph? Yes, I probably... Just
7:51
in passing. I probably met him when I was at
7:53
lessons. I would see him at the house. And I
7:57
probably saw a big band show or two with him
8:00
playing in it. Nice. So yeah. So this was the
8:02
start of her New York era. She was playing on
8:05
52nd Street. And she was playing often at the
8:09
Village Vanguard in the 40s. Can you talk a little
8:13
bit about this era of jazz? What's going on in
8:16
the 40s? That's like the big band stuff is happening.
8:20
I think Swing. Yeah, Swing is coming along. It's
8:23
music to dance to. So they were doing that, and
8:27
I'm trying to think, the Village Vanguard. I've
8:30
had a couple people told me that they went to
8:32
New York, and there's a poster of her still there.
8:34
You go down the stairs, and right there at the
8:38
bottom of the stairs, there's a poster of Mary
8:40
Osborne when she played. Actually, I think she
8:42
went back and played in the late 80s and early
8:44
90s. Yeah, she did. Yeah, so there's a poster
8:47
of her there. you could still see, or at least
8:50
a few years ago, it was still there. So yeah.
8:53
Vintage guitar magazine said her swinging style
8:56
earned her confirmation as one of the early architects
8:59
of R and B and rock and roll. She's often described
9:03
as a swing guitarist. Could you explain what
9:06
swing is, especially for someone who might not
9:10
know about jazz? Yeah. I'm trying to think of
9:13
swing is when you have a, like a bounce to it.
9:17
Like if you, technically, swing is like a, like
9:22
if you played something straight, just a regular
9:24
beat, like one and two and three and four and
9:27
one and two and three and four and one and two
9:29
and three and four. Swing is when you kind of
9:32
have this like, kind of bounce to it, like a
9:34
little, there's like a pause between the eighth
9:37
notes. It's like one and two and three and four
9:40
and one and two and three and four. So swing
9:44
would have like a little. Kind of bounced it.
9:48
But like a good way to think. Yeah, you think
9:53
of old like big band stuff where it's like the
9:55
Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller things, like In
9:58
the Mood and that kind of stuff. It has a certain
10:01
bounce to it, basically. So she led her own trio
10:05
with Sanford Gold and Frenchie Kayet, and eventually
10:09
pianist Jack Police joined. She said, I love
10:14
the way guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli describes
10:17
the kind of thing we were doing. He calls it
10:20
disguising jazz as hotel music. We recorded first
10:25
for Signature Records and then Decca and their
10:28
subsidiary Choral. On Decca, it was strictly
10:30
commercial. I wanted people to like us and sell.
10:34
So it seems like she considered her trio as really
10:39
trying to make music that would sell, that was
10:42
popular, that a lot of people would be able to
10:44
listen to. But she's still performing in New
10:48
York, sitting in with every single famous jazz
10:52
musician that you could think of. Here is Hoodle
10:55
Addle by the Mary Osbourne Trio from 1946. This
10:59
is Mary Osbourne on vocals and guitar. In Philadelphia
11:06
on a recent day, a certain guy sat down at the
11:11
88 and he played a tune that kinda made you wanna
11:16
sing. But it had no words, all it had was swing.
11:25
To somebody holler, oodle -addle, oodle -addle,
11:30
oodle -addle -addle, oodle -addle. During this
11:48
time, Osborne made friends with writer and promoter
11:51
Leonard Feather. In 1945, Art Tatum, Coleman
11:56
Hawkins, Daisy Gillespie, and even more jazz
11:59
musicians played in Philadelphia at the Academy
12:02
of Music. Mary Osborne said, Leonard Feather
12:06
just urged me to go on stage, so I ended up sitting
12:09
in and I got this fantastic write -up in the
12:12
Philadelphia papers the next day when I wasn't
12:14
even supposed to be there. I looked in the archives
12:18
for the Philadelphia Inquirer on November 21st,
12:21
1945, and they said, A surprise feature of the
12:25
evening was Mary Osborne, attractive young guitarist
12:28
whose playing brought further cheers and whistles
12:31
from the lively audience. She ended up performing
12:34
on the Arthur Godfrey Show, the Ed Sullivan Show.
12:37
She became a regular performer on Jack Sterling's
12:39
New York Radio Show from 1952 to 1963, playing
12:43
jazz with a quartet with Elliot Lawrence as band
12:47
leader. And that was playing jazz live on the
12:50
radio. And she was also busy in her home life.
12:53
She had three children during this time and even
12:56
recorded her first album, A Girl and Her Guitar,
12:59
when she was pregnant with her third. It has
13:02
pianist Tommy Flanagan, rhythm guitarist Danny
13:05
Barker, bassist Tommy Potter, and drummer Papa
13:08
Joe Jones. What did you think of that album?
13:11
I like it. I've listened to that a little bit.
13:15
I'm trying to remember if I actually have the
13:16
physical album. It's pretty rare now. It goes
13:19
for a lot of money. It is hard to find. All of
13:22
her LPs are. Yeah, I think my mom may have just
13:25
got it a little while ago, but you can listen
13:28
to it. You can listen to a lot of the tracks
13:29
on YouTube and Spotify and stuff. But yeah, it's
13:32
great. The guitar sounds great. It's really interesting.
13:36
It's like you mentioned, this is kind of like
13:38
early sort of R &B. rock and roll maybe sort
13:42
of leading to that it's like her sound was a
13:44
little bit had a little bit of a drive to it
13:47
like not like distortion you would say but like
13:49
a little bit like an edge to it which is kind
13:52
of that precursor of like r &b and rock and roll
13:54
and when you listen to them it's like man that's
13:56
a that's a really great sound it's probably just
13:59
an amp turned up really loud is what's going
14:01
on so yeah it sounds really clear for being an
14:05
older recording for sure A modern review of the
14:09
album in Guitar Player Magazine said, This is
14:12
an essential work from an essential swing guitarist
14:15
whose badass Charlie Christian -esque style is
14:18
ripe for rediscovery. She occasionally slips
14:21
and slides like a playful Les Paul with a hard
14:24
-hitting Mickey Baker edge and a Charlie Christian
14:27
aesthetic hovering over it, so don't expect gentle
14:30
utterances. Mary Osbourne was a badass, and she's
14:34
at her best on A Girl and Her Guitar. And that
14:38
does track with what you were saying. It had
14:40
an edge to it. Yeah. This is How High the Moon
14:45
from 1959. In 1962, she said, I became bored
15:18
with my playing and with music in general. She
15:21
decided to try something new by studying Spanish
15:23
classical guitar. She said, it was a thrill to
15:26
study classical techniques. I thought, look at
15:29
this, there's so much more. And my teacher, Alberto
15:32
Valdez Blaine, was wonderful. So now I'm practicing
15:36
two hours every day with no pick. I knew my real
15:40
strength lies in what I do, jazz. and that classical
15:43
could never be my forte. But it was a beautiful
15:46
music and made me hear so much more. And when
15:49
I started to learn the right -hand finger technique,
15:51
I started to play pop and jazz songs with my
15:54
fingers. So it really aided my development as
15:57
a musician and a guitar player. Alberto Valdez
16:01
Blaine was Andres Segovia's student. Okay, yeah.
16:04
And he was pretty much the father of classical
16:07
guitar. Yeah, Andres Segovia, kind of in the
16:10
early 1900s, I guess. brought forward like a
16:13
resurgence of classical guitar as a solo instrument.
16:16
Basically, you do like concerts with the classical
16:18
guitar. It had been popular in the early, mid
16:20
-1800s and sort of fallen out of fashion, I guess,
16:23
in the late 1800s. But he brought it back and
16:27
started performing. He was transcribing a lot
16:31
of music. that older composers like Bach and
16:34
Scarlatti had written for other instruments,
16:37
like the cello or the lute or for harpsichord,
16:40
and he transcribed them for guitar. And he was
16:42
playing them and performing them, and it became
16:44
really popular at it. So that kind of led to,
16:46
I guess, a resurgence of an interest in classical
16:49
guitar. So, yeah, he was the godfather of modern
16:53
classical guitar, you could say, yeah. Yeah,
16:56
and people didn't even realize that you could
16:58
play these classical pieces on a guitar. Yeah.
17:01
Or it would sound so good. Yeah. I think it's
17:04
important to note that in 1981, Mary Osborne
17:09
told the New York Times, there's nothing unusual
17:12
about women being musicians. In the 40s, when
17:16
I came to New York, Billy Rogers, who played
17:18
trumpet in Woody Herman's band, and Dardanelle,
17:21
the pianist and singer, and I were just musicians.
17:24
No one ever wrote about a girl guitar player.
17:27
I got my jobs because I played and sang. Not
17:31
for that. So she wasn't just good for a girl.
17:35
There's no qualifier necessary. She was an incredible
17:38
guitar player, period. We talk about her playing
17:41
with the greats, but she was one of the greats.
17:45
Yeah, definitely. I guess going back to the idea
17:49
of the classical guitar, that was one of the
17:51
big things when I was taking lessons from her,
17:53
is that I started with a little bit of a jazz.
17:57
kind of bent like she wouldn't i took lessons
18:00
from her in high school for a little bit for
18:01
about a year or two then i went to bakersfield
18:03
college and then when i went to cal state i took
18:06
lessons from her again through the college for
18:08
two more years and at that point she was teaching
18:11
me like classical technique basically and it
18:13
was real real big it was like all finger style
18:15
right hand exercises and i had started off playing
18:20
like fingerstyle and then started using a pick
18:22
probably in high school and uh the fingerstyle
18:25
always felt more natural to me i like that a
18:27
lot but having her like show me all these things
18:29
uh how to play fingerstyle and all these exercises
18:32
and doing classical music it was it was really
18:35
great it helped my technique a lot helped me
18:37
grow as a musician i think a lot so but yeah
18:39
it's neat to to i guess just mention that that's
18:42
what she did she studied classical guitar for
18:44
a while and uh i had to know she was bored with
18:47
what she was doing she's like I'll do something
18:49
different. That's a great thing to do if you're
18:51
playing. You should always try to be growing.
18:53
So that's great. Yeah. Now we get to the part
18:57
where we get to Bakersfield. In September of
19:00
1967, Phil Brenner from Moserite Guitar Company
19:04
called Ralph Scafidi and offered him a job. Moserite
19:08
is a legendary guitar company from right here
19:10
in Bakersfield. Glenn Campbell, Buck Owens, and
19:14
The Ventures were all using Moserites at the
19:16
time. Scafidi and Osborne were both excited to
19:20
play music on the West Coast. They had had a
19:23
good career in New York City and touring all
19:26
over that it was exciting for them to come here.
19:29
Ralph moved to start work in November of 1967,
19:33
and Mary and the children joined him in July
19:36
1968. Their son, Ralph Scafidi Jr., explained,
19:42
Mose Wright had a lot of internal management
19:44
problems, and it became apparent that the company
19:47
wasn't functioning as well as Dad had been led
19:49
to believe. In 1969, Mose Wright filed for bankruptcy.
19:54
But Bakersfield's Moserite guitars continue to
19:57
be legendary in music. Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Ramone,
20:00
Kurt Cobain, the Dead Kennedys, East Bay Ray,
20:04
Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains, and Kevin
20:07
Shields from My Bloody Valentine all use Moserite
20:10
guitars, along with a lot of other country artists
20:13
that were copying the sound from the 60s, including
20:18
also some surf guitars that are copying the way
20:21
that the Ventures sounded. One week after Maserat
20:25
went under, Ralph formed Rozak Electronics, which
20:29
I had an amp from them when I was a kid that
20:32
I must have got off the Classifieds or Craigslist
20:35
or something. I never knew that it was from there.
20:38
That was one of his amps. Wow, that's cool. Yeah,
20:40
Rozak. The whole company was in a single warehouse
20:43
on East Brundage Lane, according to AvexDatabase
20:46
.com. It wasn't bigger than 40 by 20 yards. They
20:50
did everything there. And they even had a lifetime
20:53
guarantee. So if something went wrong, they would
20:55
repair it. They made fuzz boxes called the New
20:58
Fuzz. And their most popular was another pedal
21:01
called the New Wah Pedal. And it was a wah pedal.
21:05
And according to Vintage Guitar Magazine, that
21:07
was the pedal that was used in Isaac Hayes' Shaft.
21:10
Oh, okay. So I thought that was really cool.
21:13
After that went out of business. Mary and Ralph
21:17
had the Osborne Guitar Company and Osborne Sound
21:21
Labs. They made guitars. They made amps and PAs.
21:25
And Mary Osborne would come in and test every
21:28
amp herself before they sent it out. I remember
21:31
one way I took lessons and she had her Osborne
21:33
amp in the corner. I said, wow, that's your amp.
21:36
So, yeah, that's our company. It's like, wow.
21:39
Yeah, it's really cool. They had these companies
21:41
making electronics here. They're probably still
21:44
floating around Bakersfield. So they really tried
21:48
to make Bakersfield a home for jazz. In October
21:53
1968, the headline on the Bakersfield Californian
21:57
read, immigrants from East Coast ardent Bakersfield
22:01
boosters. Some of the places that... According
22:04
to the Californian, in 1969, they played at the
22:08
Albert Goode Auditorium at the fairgrounds for
22:11
the Italian Heritage Association, Freddy's Skyway
22:15
House by the airport for the New Year's Eve celebration,
22:17
and at the Howdy House at the corner of California
22:22
and Oak Street in 1970. She also played at the
22:26
March of Dimes telegramma broadcast from the
22:29
Civic Auditorium in 1971. A lot of times she
22:33
performed with the Jack Monin Orchestra, and
22:37
they had a regular gig playing at the Bakersfield
22:39
Hilton Inn. She also played in a jazz trio with
22:43
Danny Murillo on drums and Archie Rader on bass
22:46
at the Broadway in Valley Plaza to raise money
22:49
for the Kern Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1976,
22:54
She performed at the Jazz Jam for Cal State Bakersfield
22:57
at the Civic Auditorium with her group Mary Osborne
23:00
and Friends. Do you remember when the first time
23:02
you saw her play was? I'm trying to think if
23:07
it was, it was probably either, it was either
23:10
at Cal State, they would do their coffee houses,
23:13
and she did a coffee house probably in like the
23:15
late 80s. I either saw her there. I probably
23:20
saw her there at the coffee house. And she was
23:23
always just really cool. It was like, it looked
23:26
so easy. She was having a great time. She's smiling.
23:30
It was just like, I don't know, just like she
23:34
was just cool. So I think I saw her there. And
23:37
then there was a place called the Blue Note off
23:40
of like Stein and White Lane out in that area
23:43
over there. Yeah, there was probably hundreds,
23:47
if not thousands of gigs that were not in the
23:50
Bakersfield Californian because she is performing
23:53
all over whenever. There's no venue too small
23:56
or venue too big. In 1977, she appeared in a
24:00
film called At the Top and appeared on the Today
24:03
Show and also recorded a live album for the Marion
24:07
McPartland Halicon label. And that album was
24:10
called Now's the Time. She even played at the
24:13
grand opening at Stockdale Music in 1977. Oh,
24:18
wow. This was located at 5474 California. Yep.
24:22
And I only knew about the Stockdale location,
24:25
I think, later. Yeah, I used to go in the one
24:28
that was on California before they moved over
24:30
there. I don't think I ever saw her there, but
24:34
I think I knew that somebody had said something
24:35
about her being in there or something. But yeah,
24:38
and that was the Fosbenders. And was it Ken Fosbender?
24:44
I just found out, like, started the first, the
24:46
BC big band up in the 50s. He was the band director
24:48
at BC. So just a little side note there. Wow.
24:52
But yeah, I worked at Stockdale Music for a little
24:54
while over when they were on Stockdale Highway.
24:57
I think I bought my first or second guitar pedal
25:00
from there. It was like some multi -effects pedal.
25:04
And everyone told me it sounds horrible. But
25:07
I was so excited to have, like, 100 effects in
25:11
one pedal. Because I didn't even know what anything
25:13
was yet. I still don't know, to be honest. It's
25:17
fun to experiment. You have a bunch of things
25:19
to do. Yeah, to have that many effects, it was
25:22
exciting. And it had an expression pedal on the
25:24
side to control stuff that was fun. In 1980,
25:29
I found in the Bakersfield Californian a coupon
25:32
for one free lesson at the Fine Arts Workshop,
25:36
which was located on 212 Goodman. If you were
25:41
back then, you could have used that coupon to
25:43
get a lesson from Mary Osborne for free. Yeah,
25:45
that's where I think I first met her. I remember
25:48
that studio at Goodman. I think I went over there
25:50
one time and met her, and then I started taking
25:53
lessons at her house when she was teaching it
25:55
on Christmas Tree Lane. Wow. Yeah, I just remembered
25:59
that. That's right, yeah, on Goodman Street.
26:01
I probably went in there once or twice. Yeah,
26:04
when I was doing some research. for this i found
26:07
out they lived on christmas tree lane which is
26:10
very close to a apartment that i lived for very
26:13
long and i couldn't believe how i've driven past
26:16
that over and over like yeah i was couldn't believe
26:20
it was right there in 1981 she released her second
26:25
album and she only had two uh she played on hundreds
26:31
of albums but This one was called Now and Then.
26:35
It had some of her old recordings and some of
26:37
her new recordings. It was for Stash Records.
26:40
If you want to listen to it now, it is renamed
26:43
A Memorial because it was re -released on CD
26:46
after she passed away. She was performing all
26:51
the time and even... In 1983, she performed with
26:56
the LA -4 at the Bakersfield Inn, and she was
26:59
performing regularly at the Starlight Ballroom
27:02
with Ralph Scafidi and the 17 -piece Starlight
27:05
Orchestra. Did you go to the first jazz festival
27:08
in 1987? Yes, I'm sure I did. The first one was
27:12
like this. kind of dual thing with Dizzy Gillespie
27:15
as BC and then something going on at Cal State
27:18
too. And so I saw that and I don't remember if
27:20
that was the first one or the next year was the
27:22
first one. But yeah, I went to every one for
27:25
the first like 10 years there. Did she perform
27:27
at that one or? Yeah. Yeah. So in 1987, there
27:30
was the first Bakersfield Jazz Festival, which
27:33
was run by Doug Davis, who is another really
27:35
important person for the history of Bakersfield
27:38
Jazz. But they also did a show at Bakersfield
27:41
College, like you said, before this festival.
27:44
So it was kind of like you had two opportunities
27:47
to see Dizzy Gillespie. And in that... Week the
27:52
Kern County Board of Supervisors honored Mary
27:55
Osborne and proclaimed that week Jazz Week in
27:58
Kern County. Right on. Yeah. And I read a story
28:02
in the Californian that Dizzy Gillespie went
28:04
to cash his check at the bank and they asked
28:08
him for ID. And what he did was he just pulled
28:11
out his trumpet and he puffed out his cheeks.
28:13
Yeah. And I think that was enough for them to
28:16
give him the cash. Yeah. In 1990. She played
28:20
the Playboy Jazz Festival, and she reportedly
28:25
stole the show, and a lot of famous people played
28:29
on there, including Pat Metheny, who I think,
28:32
if I remember, is one of your favorite guitarists.
28:34
Yeah, he's probably my favorite guitar player.
28:36
I've got more Pat Metheny albums than anybody.
28:40
So you have your teacher and your hero on stage
28:43
right there. So during this time for years, she
28:48
was struggling with leukemia, but she kept playing
28:52
music and she kind of kept it a bit quiet. And
28:55
she's still playing all these shows. She played
28:59
more shows. She returned to New York and played
29:03
a couple of weeks there at the Village Vanguard.
29:06
And the last appearance of the Mary Osborne trio
29:10
was her and her sons. Pete on bass, and Ralph
29:14
Jr. on the drums. And that was her last appearance
29:17
as the Mary Osborne Trio, which I thought was
29:20
really powerful. Yeah, that's poignant. Mary
29:26
Osborne is living proof that it's smart to study
29:29
with the right teachers. She got her inspiration
29:31
from the great pioneer of modern jazz guitar,
29:34
Charlie Christian, and she's been swinging ever
29:36
since. We've talked a lot about her career as
29:44
a musician, but another thing that's really important
29:47
is that she was an incredible guitar teacher,
29:52
and she had so many students that I can't even
29:55
figure out how many there are. She taught in
29:58
Bakersfield at places like The Y, Our Lady of
30:02
Perpetual Help, and Garces Memorial High School.
30:05
including in 1977, she was teaching beginning
30:08
guitar and intermediate guitar at Bakersfield
30:11
College. That's what you do, right? That's what
30:14
I'm doing now, yeah. That's neat, to be able
30:16
to kind of be up there doing what so many really
30:20
great guitar players have already done, being
30:22
up there. Carl Haas and Mary Osborne, and yeah,
30:24
that's what I do now, though. Yeah. She taught
30:27
at CSUB from 1982 to 1991. What was her teaching
30:31
style? She was pretty laid back. She would give
30:35
you something to do, and you'd go home and you'd
30:38
practice it, and you'd come back and she'd just
30:40
say, play it for me, and she'd sit there and
30:42
listen, and you'd play your exercises or songs
30:45
that you were working on. She liked to just talk
30:48
about stuff. I mean, she had me playing things,
30:50
but I would ask her about a piece of music, and
30:52
she would know something about the composer,
30:55
or she would know something about how it was
30:57
written, because she'd been around a long time.
30:59
She would talk and tell me little stories about...
31:02
about people you mentioned, I think, oh, is it
31:03
Lorendo Almeida, classical guitar player, told
31:07
me about like, you know, working with him and
31:09
the classical, he's like this kind of classical
31:11
sort of jazz guitar player. But yeah, just stories
31:14
about things that she did or stories about music
31:18
or just talk about music. So, but yeah, I guess
31:22
laid back would be the way to say it. She'd like
31:25
to just sit and play music and we would play
31:28
together. She would often just have me play.
31:31
I remember her sitting one time and just saying,
31:33
what do you like to play? I don't know, just
31:36
play me something. Play me something, let me
31:39
hear what you're doing. Okay. So yeah, so it
31:41
was really nice. She was very encouraging that
31:43
way, I think. Trying to think if there's anything
31:45
else. Yeah, I mean, that was it, basically. There
31:48
was an emphasis on classical music and classical
31:52
technique, because that's what I had to do at
31:54
Cal State. Yeah. Earlier on when I was... Well,
31:58
I took lessons from her for a couple years in
32:00
high school. And that's what we were... She was
32:04
showing me stuff about jazz then. You know, just
32:06
like how to play and how to... You know, talk
32:09
about swing, talk about how to swing. And then
32:11
later on at Cal State, that's when I was born
32:13
into a classical kind of realm because that's
32:15
what the... The curriculum. The curriculum was,
32:18
exactly, yeah. But again, yeah, she would tell
32:21
me stuff. She would show me things. She would
32:23
have me play it. And again, just very laid back
32:25
and... you know, it was nice. I remember asking
32:28
her about a solo piece or something. She says,
32:32
here. And she just handed me a piece of music.
32:33
Says, go figure that out. Just, it's up to you.
32:37
You have to figure out how to do this. I'm like,
32:38
okay. Took it home and practiced it. Came back.
32:41
Is this right? Yeah, here, work on this. And
32:42
she'd show me things. Yeah, it's insisted that
32:44
I learn things. Like I would practice stuff.
32:46
If you want to learn something, here, take this
32:48
piece of music, go practice it, come back, show
32:50
me what you can do. Okay. That's awesome. You
32:55
know, She left a really great legacy. After she
32:59
passed away, the Jazz Fest did a memorial for
33:03
her. Not only did she, of course, have an obituary
33:07
in the Bakersfield Californian, but the New York
33:10
Times had an obituary for her because she was
33:12
so important. Wow. Yeah. She was inducted to
33:17
the Bakersfield Music Hall of Fame in 2017, but
33:20
she was also inducted into the North Dakota Hall
33:23
of Fame, which is where she was born. So there's
33:26
a lot of people in different communities that
33:29
are so proud of her being a part of them. She's
33:33
credited in over 100 different recordings. She
33:37
played anywhere she could, and she was happy
33:41
to share her knowledge with the world. Well,
33:45
I was thinking, it was... really neat when like
33:48
youtube started happening like 10 15 years ago
33:51
and you start look up things about i was like
33:53
i wonder what's mary mary osborne's on here and
33:55
i would find there's plenty of videos of her
33:57
playing back in the 50s and 60s that people have
34:00
uploaded and you see her playing a concert with
34:02
on a tv show with with billy holiday and it's
34:05
just yeah she played with a lot of great people
34:08
yeah In her book, Stormy Weather, The Music and
34:13
Lives of a Century of Jazz Women, Linda Dahl
34:15
calls her the first lady of jazz guitar. In many
34:19
other places, she's referred to as the queen
34:21
of jazz guitar. She was credited on over 100
34:25
different albums or singles. She played with
34:27
Joe Venucci, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Tatum, Coleman
34:31
Hawkins, Thelonious Monk, Mercer Ellington, Burl
34:33
Booker, Merle Torn, Louis Armstrong, the Andrews
34:37
sisters, Ethel Waters, the Ames brothers, and
34:39
Mary Lou Williams, and many, many others. Mary
34:42
Osborne's memorial scholarship was started in
34:45
1996. The very first recipient was Jim Scully,
34:49
and he's taught at CSUB for many years. Another
34:53
was Kyle Burnham, who teaches at BC. He told
34:57
the Californian in 2016, the first time I met
35:00
her at CSUB, we had a jam session. I couldn't
35:04
believe she was interested in giving her time
35:06
just to play a little jazz with me. She was very
35:10
encouraging, even though I was nowhere near her
35:12
level of musicianship at the time. Her willingness
35:15
to share her time and knowledge has helped shape
35:18
my teaching philosophy. I make it a priority
35:21
with my students whenever possible. She left
35:24
a legacy of music education that means her legacy
35:30
will live on in countless students all around
35:33
the world. Yeah, that's what I always, like when
35:37
you took the guitar class, I always bring up
35:39
Mary Osborne and how great she was and try to
35:42
tell all my students, go out and listen to some
35:44
Mary Osborne stuff. Yeah, that's great about
35:46
Kyle. He's a really good teacher. I'm up there
35:49
teaching with him at BC. Yeah, he hangs out with
35:53
his kids and shows them how to try this. And
35:56
he's very, yeah, just like you said, he's laid
35:59
back and he tries to just help everybody out.
36:03
He's a really good teacher. Yeah, and these are
36:06
just names that I recognize. There were a bunch
36:08
of other names. I've noticed that the way that
36:12
she taught, that it's carried on. When I think
36:16
back to taking Intro to Guitar with you. You
36:19
did a lot of the things that she did, and you
36:23
were very laid back, but you were very excited
36:26
to show us about so many different guitarists.
36:30
I remember whenever you talked about a new guitarist,
36:35
every week or every time we had a lesson, you
36:38
would put another guitarist on the board, but
36:41
then you would play their stuff. I try to play
36:43
like them or something, yeah. Yeah, and I feel
36:46
like I played guitar for a long time before.
36:49
I'm not very good. I want to learn more. Don't
36:53
get me wrong. I just like playing. But a lot
36:56
of the other students were brand new. And so
36:58
I remember you played Rumble by Link Wray. Right.
37:02
And that was just, the other kids seemed just
37:06
as amazed. by that as when you played van halen's
37:10
eruption yeah but to me i was like looking around
37:13
oh my gosh it was just so cool to hear you ripping
37:18
these different solos and it would just be you
37:22
you know you look the same you looked relaxed
37:24
and having fun as mary osborne does when you
37:27
when you watch on youtube her she just looks
37:30
so relaxed and so like she belongs there like
37:35
that's her home well it's a lot of fun It's always
37:37
like a pleasure to me to show somebody something.
37:40
There's this world of music out there. There's
37:42
all these great guitar players. I mean, it's
37:45
hard to listen to all of it, but it's like you
37:47
should go out and check out some of these really
37:49
great musicians. So it's always exciting to me
37:52
to show somebody a new guitar player. Because
37:55
I remember when I was young and my friends would
37:57
be like, hey, have you heard this guy? Have you
37:58
heard this? And I'd listen to some new music
37:59
and I'd be like, whoa, what is that? And it's
38:02
just a great feeling to discover something new
38:04
musically like that. Hopefully I want to do that
38:07
with my students. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about
38:12
some local musicians in the jazz world that you
38:16
think people should go out and listen to. Yeah,
38:19
you know, there's a lot of... Really good musicians
38:21
here in Bakersfield, keeping jazz alive. You
38:25
can actually, I guess, go down to the jazz workshop
38:27
on Tuesday nights. Steve Eisen started that more
38:31
than 15 years ago, and that's been going strong
38:33
every week on Tuesday nights. It's at the Petroleum
38:37
Club or the Sundale Country Club down there near
38:39
West High, 6 .30 to about 9 .30. Um, but they
38:44
have like a beginning jam, um, for like high
38:46
school or college students at the beginning.
38:48
And there's like a featured artist. I play down
38:50
there occasionally here and there. And then there's
38:52
like a, basically like a, a jam afterwards, like
38:55
a professional jam afterwards for about 45 minutes,
38:58
anybody that's playing. And I'm playing with
39:00
Mike Rainey on saxophone in a couple, like in
39:03
a month, be playing with him. Uh, but I play
39:05
with, you know, Kyle Burnham. Chris Tyner up
39:10
at BC. We do a lot of stuff together. Chris Tyner's
39:13
doing some great stuff musically. He's all about
39:16
new music and kind of branching out and trying
39:18
different things. He's touring around the West
39:21
Coast. He was back up in San Francisco just last
39:24
week, I think. But he's all over the place. He's
39:26
doing really good stuff. Isaiah Morphin on saxophone,
39:32
really good. My friends at the Bakersfield Music.
39:38
down on 28th Street, 28th and F Street. Jay Smith,
39:42
he's a great piano player. He's got the Jay Smith
39:45
Group. He's out playing a lot. You see him around
39:48
town. And he does a nice kind of blend of jazz,
39:53
R &B. He'll make jazz arrangements of R &B tunes
39:56
and R &B arrangements of jazz tunes. So he's
40:00
mixing it up a lot. And Paul Perez that plays
40:02
with him, he's probably one of the... Best saxophone
40:04
players, I mean, definitely in Bakersfield. Nice.
40:08
Best saxophone players around. I mean, he's really
40:11
good. He's like an A -list player. And we're
40:13
lucky to have him here in Bakersfield. He plays
40:16
with Mento Buru? He plays with Mento Buru, too,
40:18
yeah, with Jay Smith and Mento Buru and does
40:20
his own thing here and there, just like doing
40:22
jazz gigs around town. Oh, yeah, there's Brendan
40:25
Coyle. He's a very good young guitar player.
40:28
He does really well. He's going to CalArts right
40:30
now, but he's still around town playing a little
40:32
bit. Yeah, lots of good stuff going on in town,
40:35
though, still. Thank you so much for the interview.
40:38
We'll leave off with Love You Madly from 1981.
40:41
Mary Osborne is on guitar and vocals. things
40:46
come to those who wait so just relax and wait
40:50
for fate to let me see the day you say to me
40:55
i love you love you madly i love you love you