Myrna Hague dubbed her show last Saturday night, Simply Myrna, but the truth is, this jazz diva is, and was, everything but simple.

Fashionably styled throughout the evening, she was lively in tempo, at times playfully naughty, laughed in the middle of notes without it being broken. She was magical and at the same time philosophical.

Known as Jamaica’s First Lady of Jazz, yet there were those who were and many others who would have been pleasantly surprised to know that she is also a Jamaican lover’s rock singer and actress.

Having recorded an album for the famed Studio One, from which she performed a few cuts, dazzling the audience with her singing and amazing dancing skills .

Before that, the musical diva of Jamaica’s first jazz couple comprising her legendary husband Sonny Bradshaw, was delightful on numbers that were reflective of that union as well as her admiration for American jazz stylists Sarah Vaughn among others.

With exquisite vocal richness, the grand dame of the local jazz idiom, was like a field grown full of juicy mangoes with their ripened ready-to-eat variety as she satisfies her spellbound audience with I’m Coming Home Again, Shelter of Your Arms and Live Till I Die.

That was her opening segment. It was now time for the Myrna Hague you probably do not know. This was the outrageously funny performer. The one that’s a real tease.

Explaining that it came out of a process she started in an effort to bring some freshness to the hotel circuit while she was on the North Coast. “I wanted to show them that it was possible so I created a number of 45-minute shows. This particular one was kind of fun and it’s called Knutsford Boulevard,” she said before getting into her playful act.

Complemented by a member of the Stella Morris Dance Ensemble whose choreography was exciting as it was suggestive, her rendition of Love for Sale, taken from the 1930 Cole Porter musical, spoke eloquently and revealed the prankster inside the not so simple Myrna.

As she strolled around the audience at the height of her playfulness while singing Love for Sale, the old jazz standard originally considered in bad taste, even scandalous and was even banned at one point, she said teasingly to one gentleman, “You look like a nice church gentleman”.

It was one of the several times during her enthralling performance she had the audience burst into uncontrollable laughter. She continued to give mesmerise with other old classics as Whatever Lola Wants and Too Close for Comfort.

Returning to more like the Myrna that everyone knows and accustomed to, she got philosophical in her delivery of the Streets of Kingston, The Morning After and If I Never Sing (Another Song).

After a short intermission, the Carifolk Singers brought a burst of colour to the concert with a medley of Jamaican folk songs before the cheerful hostess blended in on the French Creole song Chouconne, then Yellow Bird in French and in English. She also did a most beautiful presentation of Never Never in both languages. It was at this stage the grand dame of the stage returned to her native Jamaican beat treating the highly appreciated audience with two of the gems she recorded at Studio One. She had the auditorium rocking to What About Me and How Could I Live.

By now she was vintage Myrna with Broken Hearted Melody and Moody’s Mood for Love featuring Dean Fraser’s arresting interpretation of saxophonist James Moody’s 1949 instrumental classic based on Jerome Kern’S 1935 song I’m in the Mood for Love made popular by King Pleasure’s vocal styling.

For the finale, the Jamaica Big Band including with Marjorie Whylie, Rupert Bent Jr, Desi Jones, and Fraser, truly brought the curtains down with some great music as the Stella Morris Dance Ensemble, Carifolk Singers, Myrna Hague and everyone inside the auditorium danced the night away.