Bill Milkowski

Bill Milkowski is a respected veteran music journalist who is currently contributing to Down Beat, Jazziz, Guitar Player and The Absolute Sound magazines. His writing has also appeared in Jazz Times, Bass Player, Modern Drummer, Acoustic Guitar, Mojo, Swing Journal, DRUM! and Interview as well as magazines abroad such as Jazzthing (Germany), Vibrations (Switzerland), Guitar Club (Italy), Guitar (Japan) and Hudba (Slovakia). Since moving to New York from his hometown of Milwaukee in 1980, Milkowski has written over 900 sets of liner notes for a wide variety of record labels and has published over 7,000 articles, features and reviews all over the world. He has also produced recordings for the Blue Note, Columbia and Concord labels. Milkowski is the author of seven books -- "JACO: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius" (Backbeat Books, 1995), which was also published in Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Japan, "Rockers, Jazzbos & Visionaries" (Billboard Books, 1998),"Swing It! An Annotated History of Jive" (Billboard Books, 2001), "Legends of Jazz" (Edizioni White Star, 2011), "Keith Richards: A Rock 'N' Roll Life" (Edizioni White Star, 2012) and "Here And Now: The Autobiograpy of Pat Martino (Backbeat Books, 2011). His most recent work is "Ode to a Tenor Titan: The Life and Times and Music of Michael Brecker (Globe Pequot/Backbeat Books, to be published on Oct. 1, 2021). A winner of the Helen Oakley Dance-Robert Palmer Award for Excellence in Newspaper, Magazine, Online Feature or Review Writing for 2004, Milkowski also received the Jazz Journalist Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and is a recipient of the 2015 Bruce Lundvall Award, presented by the Montreal Jazz Festival. During a three-year period (1993-1996) when he lived in New Orleans, Milkowski freelanced for music magazines, completed his biography on Jaco Pastorius and was also a late-night dj on radio station WWOZ ("The Milkman's Matinee"). In 1997, he returned to New York City, where he continued to contribute to jazz magazines and also authored five more books. In 2018, he moved to West Hartford, CT, and completed his Michael Brecker biography during pandemic lockdown.