Evolution is Bluffton, South Carolina’s popular 18-piece ensemble that plays music from The Great American Songbook with a contemporary flare. The band includes some of the top musicians in the Lowcountry who are committed to keeping this genre alive and thriving.
The mission of the all-volunteer organization is to preserve big band music through concert performances and special events, and to support other non-profit organizations by raising helping other organizations raise funds to support their diverse and worthy causes. Since 2018, the organization has helped raise more than $600,000 for non-profit causes such as the Hilton Head Junior Jazz Foundation, the Sun City Lions Club, Bluffton Self Help, Backpack Buddies of Bluffton, The Rotary Club of Bluffton, Family Promise of Beaufort County, and others.
The band performs at churches, festivals, galas and other local venues, and plays from a library of more than 5,500 professional arrangements that span multiple genres from jazz standards by Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Chick Corea, Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson, Chuck Mangione, and many others; to modern arrangements from some of today's most popular composers and arrangers. As big band music styles have evolved over the years, the musical repertoire of the band changed accordingly. Founded in 2004 as the Stardust Jazz Orchestra, in 2017 the band changed its name to reflect the changing nature of the genre.
