Rogers Nathan Brown

A native of Homer, Louisiana, Rogers Nathan Brown was the son of Roger Thibodeaux and Mattie Brown-Alford. He was born into a family of educators and spent his formative years learning music from his aunt when he quickly found his passion on the piano. Rogers started playing for the choirs at his home church, Lane Chapel C.M.E., before he was a teen. He understood the value of education along with the opportunity, exposure, and creativity it yields. This is particularly true through the medium of music, so he set out to share his God-given gift. All he ever wanted to do was help connect minds to the “magic of music.” That was his passion and became his life’s journey.

After graduating from Homer High in 1970, Rogers spurned the traditional family ties of heading off to Southern or Grambling when he became one of a handful of Black students to enroll at Louisiana Tech University five years after the school had been integrated. A second trailblazing event occurred at La. Tech when he contributed to the establishment of the Eta Kappa chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. in 1973.  It was also in Ruston that he would meet and fall in love with a beautiful young student from Shreveport named Cassandra Thomas. After spending a semester studying abroad in Europe, Rogers graduated a year early - obtaining his bachelor’s degree in music - and married his soulmate in the summer of 1973. The couple would then move to Ann Arbor, Michigan for graduate school. While at the University of Michigan, Cassandra and Rogers started a family and he received his master’s degree in education.

A public-school teaching career that would span across six decades started at North Chicago Community High School in Illinois (1974). There he taught music elements plus prepared the marching band, concert band, and jazz ensemble for performances. In just a few short years, Director Brown’s NCCHS’ music department, specifically, the jazz ensemble was recognized as one of the best in the state culminating with a 1st Place finish at the 1978 Illinois High School Jazz Festival. Next, the Browns would relocate to Tidewater when he became the band director at Booker T. Washington High School in Norfolk, Virginia (1978-1980). While at Booker T., Rogers also taught elementary band at Roberts Park and Liberty Park schools.

Soon, Rogers would be offered a life-changing opportunity when Norfolk State’s legendary Director of Bands Emery Fears hired him as an Assistant Band Director for the Spartan Legion for the 1980-1981 school year. He would be affiliated with NSU for the next forty-two years! Under the “Chief”, he would be given day-to-day responsibilities over the Spartan Legion marching band and Wind Ensemble. Rogers would eventually serve as Associate Director of Bands and Chief Arranger working beside directors Fears and Alzie Walker until 1991 to help usher in the powerful sound and musicianship that the Legion has become known for across the nation. He also led the school’s jazz band for sixteen years and gained additional attention for hyping up basketball crowds at Echols Hall with the NSU Pep Band. However, Rogers may be best remembered for his mastery in arranging music for the Spartan Legion’s on-field halftime renditions! In addition, many people may not have realized that music from his own recording project has been used for background on the Norfolk State telephone system over the years.

As a Professor of Music, Rogers taught classes in Arranging, Band Instrument Survey, Progressive Harmony, Music Law, and Jazz Literature. Of course, his most famous course may have been the Performing Arts Workshop on Friday afternoons! He also laid the foundation for NSU’s Music Media program curriculum and spearheaded the creation of the state-of-the-art in-house professional digital production and recording studio in the early 1990s. That program has been benchmarked with some of the top music technology programs in the United States for colleges in the same classification. He continued to oversee the Music Media and Technology program until his “initial retirement” in 2014. This program has helped hundreds of former students establish careers in the music industry by providing hands-on access to mixing, engineering, audio workstations, and video production. Over the course of his career he has also mentored, written for, produced and given a first chance to countless musicians.

Rogers enjoyed entertaining audiences as an active performing artist for over fifty years as a solo act and with groups like Hester’s Melody Makers, The Good Life and, of course, leading his very own RaJazz, which he led for twenty-two years. He could always be found playing throughout the year in many of the top live venues across Hampton Roads, the state of Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic region. For example, Rogers and RaJazz had the pleasure opening for icons like Dizzy Gillespie, as well as international artists such as Kem, Boys 2 Men, Najee, and George Duke to name just a few. They performed at the St. Lucia Music Festival, Hampton Jazz Festival, the Norfolk Jazz Festival and in 2010 were a featured act on the main stage of the American Music Festival.

In June 2022, the Hampton Roads community held The Last Set event to celebrate his “retirement” with RaJazz as Cassandra and Rogers fulfilled their lifelong dream of relocating to Florida that same year. However, the music and teaching did not stop in Virginia! Rogers worked as a part-time instructor at Florida SouthWestern State College for two more years in the Fort Myers area. He also continued to work gigs and enjoy live music performances around his new community until his health made it too difficult to do so. Rogers once wrote, “I have not worked a day in my life because I have lived my passion! I am still inspired by the ‘magic of music’ and I hope my students see that I bring my infectious energy as a lifelong learner and experience as a successful professional artist to the academic setting. My goals are for my students to become ambassadors for music and how it stimulates life regardless of their future aspirations after my classes.”

Rogers was a member of Mount Zion A.M.E. Church in Virginia Beach for years before joining the First Baptist Church South Hill family in 2004, where he maintained his membership while in Florida. He was preceded in death by his parents; brother, John Alford (Carolyn); and brothers-in-law, Arthur D. Thomas, Jr, and Calvin Thomas (Linda). Rogers’ legacy will not be forgotten by his loving caretaker and wife of fifty-two years, Cassandra; daughter, Charmona Whitfield (Telly); son, Rashad Brown; two grandsons, Donovan and Wesley Whitfield; two brothers, Franklin Alford (Bertha), and Rev. David Charles Brown; sisters-in-law Cynthia Watford (David) and Sharlene Abraham (Aristotle); and a host of cousins, nieces, nephews, friends, colleagues, students, mentees, and many, many more music lovers.