Mary Osborne; Jazz Singer and Guitarist

Mary Osborne, one of the first female musicians to establish a place in the jazz hierarchy of the 1940s, died Wednesday morning in a Bakersfield hospital of cancer. The guitarist and singer was 70.

Times jazz critic Leonard Feather, in his anthology series “The Encyclopedia of Jazz,” said she was inspired as a teen-ager by Charlie Christian, the famous jazz guitarist with the Benny Goodman band, who she had first heard in Oklahoma before he joined Goodman. She had been studying music with her father since her childhood in North Dakota, playing guitar, banjo and singing, but after the encounter with Christian, she began to concentrate on electric guitar.

She toured with the Joe Venuti, Buddy Rogers and Dick Stabile bands and later worked with Russ Morgan and Gay Claridge.

By 1945, she had become a favorite supporting artist on the recording dates of Mary Lou Williams, Mercer Ellington and Coleman Hawkins while also forming her own trio. Her early recordings on Decca, Victor and Aladdin records featured her stylish guitar and distinctive vocals. In 1948, she began a lengthy engagement at Kelley’s Stables in New York where other musicians, including the pioneer jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, first heard her.

For much of the 1950s, she was heard daily with the Elliot Lawrence quintet on Jack Sterling’s CBS radio show and appeared on TV with Arthur Godfrey and others. Later, she recorded with the Louie Bellson and Gene Krupa big bands.

Feather, who produced some of her recordings, said she was known for her exceptional beat and aggressively swinging style and was “a ballad singer of unusual talent.”

She settled in Bakersfield in 1967 and with her husband, trumpeter Ralph Scaffidi, formed a guitar and musical amplification firm. She also performed in a quintet with her husband, two sons and daughter.

In recent years she made an occasional nightclub or concert appearance. She performed in 1981 at the Kool Jazz Festival in New York, in 1989 and ’90 at the L.A. Classic Jazz Festival, in 1990 at the Playboy Jazz Marathon at the Hollywood Bowl and last year at Jazz at the L.A. Airport Hilton.