Watching Myra Burnette perform, you’d never believe she wanted to become a history teacher or that she once was very shy.
As part of Miss Myra and the Moonshiners, a five-piece New Orleans-style jazz band, she sings, tells stories, plays guitar and piano, laughs and dances the Lindy Hop.
Miss Myra and the Moonshiners will perform 1920s and 1930s jazz music on May 7 at the Orlin Trapp Auditorium in Waukegan. The group, which got its start at a bar in Minneapolis, now is keeping her busy enough to make a living at what she loves, she said.
The Moonshiners are trombonist Nathan Berry, clarinet and bass saxophone player Sam Skavnak, percussionist Beth Varela and bassist Matt Blake. Burnette grew up listening to 1920s and 1930s music. “My parents had me quite late in life,” she said. “They listened to old music. What I love about music from the ’20s is that it’s accessible for everybody.”
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Her parents also enrolled her in piano and swing dancing lessons.
“When I took a trip to New Orleans, I realized this is what I need to be doing,” Burnette said. “I thought I was going to be a history professor. I even worked at a university to get the vibe. But I started playing more music and I just fell in love with the guitar. It called me more than academia. Right now, I feel like I can marry the two. I tell stories on stage, but I like them to be engaging. I don’t want them to sound like dry facts,” she said. “Something about the history of this music and the feel of it has captured my heart and won’t let me go.”
Burnette said she and the rest of the and members sing and play instruments. “Recently my focus has shifted toward guitar,” she said. “I think of myself as a guitarist who is versed in style of late ’20s guitar playing. It’s very specific.”
Previously, banjos were most commonly used in swing bands and dance bands. But a blues guitarist named Eddie Lang helped bring the instrument into the jazz band genre in the 1920s, she said. “His style of playing really gave the guitar more prominence,” Burnette said. “He would do solos and play these really beautiful melodic lines as an accompaniment.”
“He does a lot of beautiful bass note runs that cradle the melody. He just seems to have this certain intuition for what the soloist is going to do. He just responds to it in such a beautiful way.” His music has also inspired Burnette to hone her virtuosic guitar skills, for which Lang was known.
She’ll perform several Eddie Lang pieces in Waukegan, including “Singing the Blues,” which will be done without vocals.
The group also will perform a Louis Armstrong piece, “Hotter than That.”
Burnette said jazz shifted during Armstrong’s era. “You can hear it in the way he plays,” she said. “He does a scat vocal section with a guitar response by Lonnie Johnson.”
Miss Myra and the Moonshiners will do the scat section of that piece with trombone and guitar instead of voice and guitar.
The group also will perform some original pieces. One of them, “The Seven Deadly Sins,” was written by Armstrong. “It’s a bit in the style of the old spirituals, but it has more modern lyrics,” Burnette said.
Burnette also collaborates with other musicians. She belongs to the Spruce Top Duo. “We do super elaborate arranged guitar duets from the 1920s and 1930s,” she said. They wrote guitar duos to accompany one of Charlie Chaplin’s silent films, which they performed while the movie was showing.
Burnette said when writing her own compositions she’s dedicated to respecting and honoring the style from the late ’20s and ’30s. “The freshness comes from the lyrics,” she said. There are some modern day references.”
Burnette recently was hired to compose music and lead the band for a traveling pop-up circus. Cast members will juggle, walk on stilts and play instruments. “We are creating a devised theater show with storytelling with circus elements,” she said, adding, “I always wanted to run away with the circus.
“I’m getting so much work and I’m so appreciative for that,” Burnette said. “I would like to think that’s due to the efforts and sincerity of my performance. We bring that music with enthusiasm, and the audience catches on.”
Miss Myra and the Moonshiners
When: 7:30 p.m. May 7
Where: Orlin Trapp Auditorium, Waukegan High School, 2325 Brookside, Waukegan
Tickets: $30
Information: 847-281-5209, lakecountyconcerts.org
Sheryl DeVore is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.
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