Editor’s note: this edition of Six Questions is by NLE’s Bart Greenberg.
Kelly Wohlford, well known within the NYC cabaret community as a top-flight technical director is also a fine vocalist. Now, in collaboration with jazz pianist-singer Quintin Harris, she has created the newest and most swinging open mic in town: Scat School, a monthly jazz jam at Don’t 
Tell Mama. As Wohlford explains below, the breadth of each evening isn’t limited to just jazz vocalizing, but also offers a chance for performers to experiment and mingle with other artists.
The next sessions are April 7th, May 5th, and June 2nd, each at 7:00 PM, with a $5 cover and the usual $20, two-deink minimum (cash only).
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Kelly Wohlford (KW) Six Questions:
NLE: How did you come up with the idea of Scat School?
KW: I actually woke up at 4 in the morning and went “I think I have an idea for a show!” Quintin Harris, he and his family have been at Mama’s and I’ve always been involved in their shows. I just love these kids—so talented and so creative. I had just found out he had lost his bass and drummer. He had started doing shows at Birdland and I thought how does a kid his age find people of his caliber to work with? That led me to think about cabaret and how we’re talking about getting older and we’re not bringing in new people or they’re not staying. We have a lot of showcases with younger people, but it’s not translating into new cabaret shows, so I wanted to think of a way to work with Quitin and get younger musicians to work with him, but also make a safe place for young people to not spend a lot of money and to experience this room.
So I thought this is a great thing for me to do as I get to sing with Quintin my favorite kind of music, I get to hang out with musicians, which I have loved doing my entire career. And we could have community at a time when we need as much community as we can find. As things get terrifying – and terrifyingly out of control – and we don’t know what is happening from day to day, counting on this community is a way to do that. But that was the whole, 4 AM brain explosion. So I woke up in the morning and I texted Quintin and I said “what do you think about this” and he said “okay.”
And so we talked about how we were going to start because I had lost my full time job in May and didn’t have a lot of money to hire musicians and do this and the other thing, and so I said “why don’t we set up the drums, we’ll set up a bass amp, microphones, whatever we need and you and I – and if no one shows up, we’ll have an hour and half of fun singing and playing together,” and he said “I’m all for thatt,” and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. That’s what we did and January 6 was the first one — which happened to be my birthday – and it was a great way to start Scat School to celebrate. As the idea started to gel, Tanya [Moberly] said you need to book more shows so we wound up booking into June having done the one show. And the first two have turned out better than expected. And I think it’s a good concept.
NLE: So how does Scat School work?
KW: It’s basically a jazz jam, open mic drop-in. We start at 7. It’s a $5 cover. And the minimum is the minimum. I wanted to make it cheap so that young people could come and wouldn’t break the bank trying to do this. And the name Scat School was more just what do: I want to call this because I will be scatting. A lot of people who come to Mama’s 
do a bit of scat here and there within their shows. It’s one of those things where it’s a nice place to practice, although it’s got a bit confusing because some people think it’s a class. But basically everyone gets to pick up an instrument or vocalize.
Andrew Poretz, a new guitarist—he has just gotten into guitar—and the first night he sat up there and noodled with every song and that’s the point of this. Was he perfect? No, he wasn’t perfect. But he was having a great time. And did he learn a lot? Absolutely. which is the point of the whole thing. There were a number of people who have done shows recently who were there. Joe Walker was there, and some of my friends came and Quintin’s family came. One of the waitresses, her partner came and he is a drummer and he got up and played. There was a young couple who wandered in off the street and he was a drummer and he and Darian went back and forth sitting in. And that’s exactly what I want it to be: a casual, fun, supportive environment.
NLE: Do people sign up ahead of time?
KW: Well, they make reservations and I’m doing the tech, so when they come in to be seated I ask if they are going to be performing and what they want to do. About ⅔ of those attending want to get up. Some of them say “I’m not really sure yet” and then about 20 minutes in “yeah, I think they want to do something.” Quintin is amazing and knows something like 1,000 standards and they’re all American Songbook; and he’s a beautiful player and a wonderful singer. He did two sold-out sets at Birdland. He’s also writing his own music.
NLE: What do you see as the impact of Scat School?
KW: My previous day job was working for a nonprofit entertainment company and our primary goal was environmental activism. We worked with high school students, taking ideas from sustainability and writing songs. Or drawing on things coming from within their community that they’d like to see changed and write songs about that, as well as making videos. So working with young people in music and the arts has been a central part of my life for probably the last 10 or 15 years. They’re the future. They’re going to define what Broadway sounds like in 20 years. Probably less than that. As you’ve seen it change from old school South Pacific to Rent and Hamilton, through Sondheim, they’re going to be guiding us and we’re going to be following. The American Songbook is a wonderful treasure and needs to remain in our orbit because that is the foundation of pop music. We can go way back into history but modern pop music is from the American Songbook and that comes from musical theater and film. Any way we can get the young people involved and jazz is cool. I’ve gone to a lot of little open mics here and there to see what other people are doing and there are all these young people getting into the craft of improv and playing and sharing the space with each other and giving them the chance to create improvisational solos. I just love that.
NLE: What is your background in music?
KW: I was a session singer for many years, so I’ve done many styles of music, but when anyone asks me what I like to do it’s usually in the jazz vein. And I grew up listening to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn and Billie Holiday and I just love that style of music.
I started in children’s theater when I was a little kid. And singin
g was my favorite thing ever. After going through high school and college where I was getting cast in all sorts of roles including a 65-year-old woman, getting into theater in New York City, I realized it wasn’t so easy when you’re 20 and they only see you as 20, so I started singing in the clubs.
My musical background was as a drummer in high school, a percussionist. Quite a bit of concert music. Drums have always been a part of my life. I used to teach music theory to little kids with hand drums. But my life has always been musical and I’ve always a song running through my head constantly and I sing along to that, and hum along to that, and drum along to that (scatting). If I don’t know the words, I’ll do that. All the time. And I have to turn that into something that can be a teachable thing. But that’s where that sort of came from. I never studied jazz. All my studies have always been classical. Or they’ve been my vocal coaches for the theater or for the studio. But that is something that is in me. Probably from many souls ago.
NLE: Is there anything else you would like to add?
KW: I just don’t want people to be afraid. I don’t want it to be daunting. I want them to come and watch and if they want to sing, they can sing. And if it takes them a couple of times before they get up, that’s fine with me. And we’ll go until everyone is done. We’re booked for 90 minutes, but we’ll go two hours. If people are having fun, that’s an important point. It really isn’t a show, it’s an open mic jam.
People can just get up and do straightforward standards if they prefer. And I’m spreading the word. I have a lot of people come up to me and say, “I don’t sing jazz,” and I say that’s okay. You know Great American Songbook numbers. You can sing with a wonderful jazz musician who will give you the flavor of jazz. I mean Ella Fitzgerald has one of the most beautiful and purist voices in music ever, and scatting makes her a jazz singer, but if you took her out of that and put her with Billy Stritch she could sing at 54 Below. Is Marilyn Maye a jazz singer? It’s kind of ambiguous.
