Club Patio Jazz Day has outgrown Orrin Evans’ porch. It still feels like a house party.

During that fraught lockdown summer five years ago, many of us walked out onto our front porch to find an invisible barrier against the rest of the world.

Pianist Orrin Evans discovered a stage.

The weekly gathering that came to be called Club Patio didn’t start out with the intention of launching a concert series. It was simply a release valve, a reaction to a distressing, tension-filled period.

Evans recalls that the COVID-19 fears and loss of gigs were made exponentially worse by the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of police in Minneapolis that May.

“For me, the shutdown was almost easier to deal with than what ended up happening with George Floyd. We’re in the midst of this pandemic, and now we’re dealing with armed guards walking around. I felt the energy in the neighborhood and in the world, and I just said, ‘Let’s play.’”

Drummer Jason Brown was staying with Evans and his wife, Dawn, at their home in Mount Airy at the time, waiting out a two-week quarantine (remember “pods?”). A call to bassist Madison Rast completed the spontaneous trio, and saxophonist Kwame Bell ended up sitting in.

They set up just outside the Evanses’ front door and played with fellow humans for the first time in over two months. A small audience gathered on the lawn, while Evans used his phone to livestream the show via his Facebook page.

“This was before I had cameras or any of that stuff,” he said with a laugh. “That shows how young and goofy the whole idea of streaming was.”

“It was very impromptu, but it also felt urgent,” Brown recalled later that summer. “Orrin is so good about making you feel comfortable, so there was instantly a house party vibe … despite the gravity of that moment. Orrin is a visionary, and unique among visionaries; his visions only work with maximum inclusion.”

In the beginning, Evans was scared. “I didn’t know whether the neighbors would be annoyed at me doing this.”

“But they weren’t, they really embraced it. There were people in the neighborhood that might not have been huge jazz fans, but they saw something happening. I realized that’s what we really needed: that sense of community. Afterward I was like, ‘OK, how can I keep building on this?’”

Club Patio became a weekly event, drawing major names from the jazz world to Evans’ front yard, including bassists Buster Williams, Dezron Douglas, and Luques Curtis; drummers Lenny White, Justin Faulkner, and Nasheet Waits; and a host of local collaborators.

Even as venues reopened and he moved to Germantown, Evans continued to host sporadic events. The initial series culminated in the summer of 2021 with a daylong festival at the Wyndmoor home of supporters Molly Murphy and Greg Rigdon, who had hosted their own series of socially distanced concerts in their spacious backyard.

That tradition continues this Sunday with Club Patio Jazz Day, a festival spanning two stages at the Whitemarsh Valley Event Center in Fort Washington. The main stage is indoors, but the building does feature a patio where Evans has stationed an outdoor jam session stage.

“It’s an old house with a big country porch,” the pianist said. “So it keeps that same vibe.”

The daylong festival provides a showcase for the roster of artists on Evans’ own Imani Records label. This year’s lineup is highlighted by a performance from the pianist’s three-time Grammy-nominated Captain Black Big Band with vocalist Paul Jost as a special guest.

The day also includes a duo set by saxophonist Caleb Wheeler Curtis and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza — two-thirds of the adventurous trio Ember — and an All-Star Band including Curtis, keyboardist Luke Carlos O’Reilly, trumpeter Thomas Marriott, bassist Jonathan Michel, and drummer Byron Landham.

The schedule is interspersed with sets by youth ensembles hosted by local nonprofit the Heart of Jazz, which provides jazz education and mentorship opportunities to underserved students.

“I’ve been on the board of the Heart of Jazz since they started,” Evans said. “They’re doing great things, and with this festival, we’re able to lean on each other in different ways. It’s a team and a family.”

Ultimately, Evans refers to Club Patio Jazz Day as “a village reunion” — referring to the inclusive term that he uses to describe the ever-expanding community of musicians, fans, and supporters that orbit and bolster his and others’ music-making endeavors.

“The village is deeper than friends and different than family,” he explained. “These are people you can depend on to help keep the music and our lives moving. In the village, everyone understands everybody else’s insecurities and has love and empathy for what’s happening. We know each other’s kids. So it’s great to just get together, listen to music, and fellowship.”

Club Patio Jazz Day, Aug. 31, noon to 6:15 p.m. Whitemarsh Valley Event Center, 493 S. Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington. Tickets and more information at clubpatio.com