Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephen Braunginn.
Hi Stephen, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
My story is a long one, but I will strive to be succinct.
To tell my story, I must tell you that my family name is Higginbotham. I changed my last name to Braunginn when my fiancé, Jenny Brown, and I decided to combine our names to create a new one so our children will have one last name. I’m sure you can see where Braunginn came from; Brown (changed to Braun) and Higginbotham (ginn). The year was 1975. But it all doesn’t start there. First, I started out as a child the year 1954. The place Philadelphia. The city of John Coltrane.
My father, the Rev. Kenneth D. Higginbotham, Jr., and mother, Pat Higginbotham, moved our family to Columbus in 1957 when my father became the parish priest for St. Philip’s Episcopal Church. I spent my childhood years first in the Shepherd neighborhood, then in Franklin Park. My oldest brother, Ken, graduated from East High in 1968, and shortly after, we moved to Nashville, TN., three months following Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination in Memphis, TN. My father became the chaplain of St. Anselm’s Episcopal Church, serving Fisk University, MeHarry Medical College, and Tennessee State A & I, today Tennessee State-Nashville. We were then in the thick of the Civil Rights Movement.
It was during my childhood that I experienced my major influences: civil rights and jazz. The music of Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Nancy Wilson, Miles Davis, and Wes Montgomery along with R&B filled the air around the house. It was also when my interest in radio grew. I loved checking out distant stations on AM radio. Ken and I shared this interest. His focus eventually became Oldies and mine, jazz. But civil rights also loomed on my horizon.
In Nashville, my twin brother, Paul, and I were active in our church youth group, the EYC (Episcopal Young Churchmen). We became active leaders, participated in leadership training, and were involved in the anti-war movement and Civil Rights movement. In our senior year, we played active roles as youth leaders in Pearl High School during the first year of bussing desegregation.
My interest in jazz blossomed. My first jazz album purchase was Wes Montgomery: A Day in the Life. I still have that record in my collection. Today, I have hundreds. Add that to thousands of CDs and digital music; my collection is more than the average collector and less than many jazz musicians and others in the industry. But I also have the radio with unlimited capacity.
1972 was the year I moved to Maryland to go to school. 1974, I then moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where I completed both my B.S.-Special Education and later an M.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications (both from University of Wisconsin-Madison). There I met this wonderful young woman, Jenny Brown. We were married one year later. My life flourished thanks to my wife, Jenny. The highlights are: we married in 1975 (an interracial marriage), two children (boy and girl), community organizing, electoral and labor politics, education (teacher), back-to-the-lander (purchased a small farm to raise our food sustainably), and music. I later became a volunteer jazz radio host/producer on listener-sponsored radio WORT89.9-FM in Madison. I taught special education in rural Wisconsin and Madison. I was elected to the Dane County Board after years working in presidential and local politics. Then, after all of that came together. I was appointed President/CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison. A life goal achieved.
All of this is essential because they make who I am today. I spent a few years in radio in the 1980s, then returned to education. But it was following that that I joined my life interests: jazz, journalism, and working with people. I returned to radio in Madison in 2004 following my retirement from the Urban League due to an illness. But it was jazz radio that helped to keep me alive. I became the co-host of a show-Strictly Jazz Sounds. I joined with my good friend, jazz pianist Jane Reynolds. We were a pair for more than 17 years. Over those many years, we interviewed jazz living legends, legacy musicians, and young ones pursuing their goals. I loved it!
My time on WORT came to an end when my wife, Jenny, and I made a major life change. We decided to move to where our only grandchild was, Columbus, Ohio. We uprooted following 47 years in Wisconsin to be a part of our granddaughter’s life. Moving to a city where we barely knew anyone outside of our family was a challenge. Stressful at times. But, thanks to jazz, that did not last very long. I became involved with A Tribe for Jazz. In the fall of 2022, I started my jazz podcast, Strictly Jazz Sounds. My first episode was the young, talented pianist Emmet Cohen. My second was the glamorous and friendly Stephanie Matthews and A Tribe for Jazz. Over these past six months, Stephanie and her partner in A Tribe for Jazz, Bruce Halliburton, have embraced me and created a bond with me. I now feel at home. I am officially back.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I’ve always believed that pursuing one’s goals requires persistence, knowing that there are likely to be some roadblocks. Being an African American man in this country presents its daily challenges. Those are a given. Add to that challenges from living in a large family (six children), a divorce that took our father away from us, and lack of finances. Then add to that health-related struggles.
It was always expected that I would go to college. It was expected in both of my maternal and paternal families. Different than most Black families in the U.S., my family has a long tradition of acquiring a post-secondary education, especially in education, the ministry, or even law. I chose education first, then deviated to communications.
My health continues to present daily challenges. I have been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease as well as multiple joint and back issues and arthritis. And both of my knees are in major trouble. I am always in pain. I also have severe hand tremors in my right hand, my dominant hand. It’s hard to operate the keyboard and mouse, but I persist. It’s hard to walk distances. Do I get frustrated? Yes. Are there times when I’m in so much pain that I cannot do anything? Yes.
Despite all of that, I continue to do what I feel inspired to do. I do not and cannot do it alone. I. do it all with the help of my wife, our children, our friends, a can-do attitude, and the power of jazz and the strength of an unidentified power that helps to pull the strings of life, and the power of the arts. I am able to achieve a great deal in my life.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I have had numerous career tracts in my life, all with a sworn oath my twin brother and I made to each other at 16 years old: to work for civil and human rights wherever we live and in whatever we do and to improve our community.
What I pour into all that I do is the determination to do it well. I do whatever I do with passion and a desire to be successful. Deep in the heart of it all is to improve people’s lives.
Professionally, I became a jack-of-all-trades. I was a teacher of students with learning disabilities. I was a labor leader as a teacher. I was a community organizer and political operative. I later became a politician. As an elected official, I became a policymaker and analyst in human services and public health. I was an advocate and race relations activist, and trainer. In between doing all of that, I was a jazz radio host/producer.
I’ve always had a notion that I enjoyed children. It became clear to me when I worked for a mental health institute program focused on helping young children who were autistic that working with people with disabling conditions was a good and necessary calling. But, as life would have it, my life situation changed. My wife and I had a baby girl. Finding good childcare in rural Wisconsin necessitated me to stay home for a year with our very young daughter. What that did was to give me time to organize in this rural community on issues of civil rights, human rights, and sustainable agriculture.
Living in southwestern Wisconsin was, at times, a lonely one as I was the only African American for miles around. The desire to be in a multicultural/diverse setting sent us returning to the region in and around Madison, WI. Not the rockbed of diversity but more people of color and diverse cultures, given that the University of Wisconsin’s flagship school was there.
I then became deeply involved in politics, namely presidential politics. I worked in Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and ’88 campaigns. In 1984 I was just getting my feet wet in politics, but it did lead to better organizing and connections in the greater Madison area. I started to put into action my commitment to human and civil rights by co-founding the 2nd Congressional District Rainbow Coalition and founding Teachers for a Free South Africa.
My name began to be circulated as a person who “got things done” who was passionate and committed to bettering the community.
In 1988, I was one of four people in Madison who formed a small team to get Jesse Jackson back on the ballot for President of the United States. I spent more than a year on this campaign in the 2nd Congressional district, managing publicity and promotions, managing secret service visits with the candidate, and served as an intermediary between the campaign and interested organizations and key individuals. We almost won the primary election in Wisconsin. The relative success of our work won me the position of Deputy Whip from Wisconsin to the 1988 Democratic National Convention. There, due to undisclosed issues, I then served as Whip. A note: during the last night, Thursday, of the convention, a delegation from the Governor Michael Dukakis camp sought me out among the throngs of thousands to visit with them in their convention operations center. The reason why is because they were impressed about our performance against their candidate and how I personally organized our state campaign on the convention floor.
Shortly following that, I was sought out by multiple state and local campaigns to work with them. The Wisconsin Assembly speaker and Democratic Party chair wanted me to fly around the state as a way of demonstrating cohesiveness between the Dukakis and Jackson camps. I got things done with a commitment to improving people’s lives.
I did so much speaking at rallies and small groups. I became a highly effective speaker for such events. I was asked to speak before the largest rally in the 1992 Clinton/Gore campaign. A crowd of over 30,000 people at Wisconsin’s capitol building to an outdoor audience. It was obvious that this was a strength of mine.
Communications has always been my strong suit. Whether it be in the radio studio or in a campaign rally, I was able to connect with people. I was heavily sought after to speak at engagements and public events. I could fashion a message that made people think, set them on fire or calm them so that they could understand the issues. My passion made a connection every time.
These skills and experiences carried me through my campaigns for the Dane County Board of Supervisors (I lost my first race by a fraction) and won my next race and didn’t have an opponent the next two times I ran. I was vigilant in communicating with my district. I eventually chaired the Dane County Human Services Board and Finance for the County Board.
In the meantime, I worked with an organization connected to the University of Wisconsin to address alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abuse as its deputy director. Then, the ultimate achievement occurred. I was appointed as the President/CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison. My passion for civil and human rights helped me to reach this accomplishment. Then the real work began.
What I have done and will continue to do is all about maintaining my commitment to the struggle. My involvement in jazz is all about the struggle. Jazz is America’s indigenous African American art form. It’s diverse in nature. I’m diverse by nature. Jazz is about drawing people together to play straight ahead or avant-garde or funk or fusion, even smooth (not my taste). I like diversity. I do it well. I’m committed to it and have been my entire life. This is what I do.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
I am a student of the Civil Rights Movement. Thus, books, films, magazine articles, and speaking events where I can learn more about it and learn from it have been a part of my growth.
Recently, though, because jazz has taken over so much of my life, I try to absorb as much information that I can about the history of jazz and its musicians. Some publications on my bookshelf include:
Beneath the Underdog: His World Composed by Mingus, edited by Nel King (Alfred A. Knopf, NY 1971);
The House That Trane Built: The Story of Impulse Records, by Ashley Kahn (W.W. Norton & Company, Ltd 2006);
American Women in Jazz: 1900 to the Present, Their Words, Lives, and Music by Sally Placksin (Wideview Books, 1982);
John Coltrane: His Life and Music by Lewis Porter (The University of Michigan Press 1999);
Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon by Maxine Gordon (University of California Press, 2018);
Miles: The Autobiography Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks 1989)
There are two principal podcasts that I listen to. The first, The Buzz by the Jazz Journalists Association (I am a member), and The Third Story by Leo Sidran. I listen to Leo’s for two reasons: 1. I know him and his father, Ben Sidran, and 2. It is a style that I am emanating because I received training from NPR many years ago, and this blog has the NPR style because it is released on WBGO, an NPR member station.
I host a Facebook Group: Jazz Enthusiasts. Please indicate if you want to be a member. It currently has 848 members.
There is one app that I use to edit my audio: Adobe Audition. I use three platforms to create my website, record the podcast, and to create the podcast. They are respectively: WordPress, Squadcast, and Libsyn.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://strictlyjazzsounds.com
- Facebook: facebook.com/strictlyjazzsounds
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-braunginn-a0865424/
Image Credits
Hedi LaMarr Rudd
