Two years ago, jazz guitar Bill Frisell and drummer Matt Chamberlain spent a few days free-associating in the recording studio.

NPR: Frisell's Floratone Creates an Exotic New Language

Srowing up, she says she saw plenty of women playing guitar in folk and rock groups, but little in the way of jazz guitar.

NPR: Mary Halvorson: Unorthodox, Jagged Jazz Guitar

"I think jazz guitar isn't very ladylike in general, " Halvorson says.

NPR: Mary Halvorson: Unorthodox, Jagged Jazz Guitar

Between her roots in classical piano and her jazz-guitar education at the Berklee College of Music, it would be easy for Larkin to fall back on technical prowess and ability to experiment with instruments such as the "baribow" (a baritone guitar played with a violin bow).

NPR: Patty Larkin: Haunted Songs

He also treated us to his solo guitar treatments of two jazz standards ("But Beautiful" and "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes"), as well as one of his own solo guitar compositions, "Venezuelan Nights, " from his recent CD The Spice of Life.

NPR: Jazz Guitarist Earl Klugh Stays Humble

We went from the original instrumentation of strings and a handful of winds to a rocking jazz rhythm section consisting of Hammond B3 organ, gospel piano, drums, electric guitar, Fender bass and acoustic bass, five saxophones, full brass, strings, timpani and percussion.

NPR: An Updated 'Messiah' from Marin Alsop