PHOTO BY KEITH MUCCILLI PHOTOGRAPHY, LLC

Over the past seven years, a series of jazz music stars have come through Greenville — stars like Grammy-award-nominated trumpeter Jon Faddis, saxophonist James Carter and pianist Bill Gerhardt. But they haven’t come here to play at the Peace Center’s Gunter Theatre or some other well-known concert hall. They’ve all come to town to be part of drummer Kevin Korschgen’s concert series known as The Wheel Sessions.

The Wheel Sessions started around seven years ago at The Wheel, an intimate arts space formerly located in the West Greenville arts district. After that venue shut down, Korschgen kept the name and kept the series going, bringing an array of jazz talent to the area but also shining the spotlight on local players like bassist Shannon Hoover (of the Greenville Jazz Collective) and saxophonist Tom Wright.

Korschgen isn’t great with dates, so it’s a good thing he numbered the series from the beginning, because The Wheel Sessions, which now takes place at a private photography studio at 1801 Rutherford Rd. is about to celebrate an auspicious event.

The Wheel Sessions No. 100 is upon us, with a performance scheduled on Thursday, May 18 featuring Hoover, Wright, tenor saxophonist Peter Dimery, trumpeter Mark Rapp, trombonist Brad Jepson, pianist Phillip Howe and Korschgen himself behind the drum kit. It’s a milestone the drummer says snuck up on him.

“It does not feel like a hundred (shows),” Korschgen says. “Time has flown, and it just happened naturally and organically.”

In fact, Korschgen didn’t even realize the 100th show was coming up until fairly recently when people began talking to him about it.

“People have been mentioning it,” he says. “When we got into the 80s, people were saying, ‘Oh, the hundredth show is soon.’”

And despite the stars that have played The Wheel Sessions in the past, Korschgen says he couldn’t be happier with the local lineup he’s assembled for show  No. 100.

“I knew once I started thinking about it, who that would be,” he says. “Number one, for their musicianship, but number two, there’s a certain camaraderie or a certain feel that I have with all these guys and all of them have led or played in previous Wheel Sessions. They’ve all really made a big impact and big impact on the audience too.”

Korschgen is quick to point out that The Wheel Sessions is still something of an underground series that attracts a small but dedicated crowd thanks to its reputation as a creative wellspring of jazz talent.

“I think that the quality of art, of creativity that we’ve brought along has improved,” he says. “I think what we’re curating has grown and stayed consistent; the brand is very consistent. There is no doubt what we do. We present jazz concerts that are as intimate as they were when we first started in West Greenville, and the focus on creativity has been there the whole time. That’s what I’m most proud of.”

While Korschgen is hopeful that, in time, a larger audience will discover The Wheel Sessions, he says he’s quite content with the space that The Wheel Sessions occupies on the Upstate music scene.

“I’m happy with where it’s at,” he says. “Sometimes when I’m not the drummer, when I’m just looking at it and feel the room, what I have going in this photography studio, it’s really a wonderful setting. And so the only thing I would change is that more people know about us, just having people be aware of The Wheel Sessions is all I can really hope for.”

Want to go?

The Wheel Sessions #100
Thursday, May 18
1801 Rutherford Rd.
wheelsessions.com

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