A longtime contributor to Down Beat, Jazziz, Jazz Times, Guitar Player and The Absolute Sound magazines, Milkowski's writing has also appeared in numerous publications over the past 50 years both abroad and Stateside, including Bass Player, Modern Drummer, DRUM!, Acoustic Guitar, Musician, Mojo (UK), Swing Journal (Japan), Jazzthing (Germany), Vibrations (Switzerland), Guitar Club (Italy), Guitar (Japan) and Hudba (Slovakia).

 

Since moving to New York City from his hometown of Milwaukee in 1980, Bill has written over 1,000 sets of liner notes and over 7,000 articles for various magazines. He is also the author of eight books, including JACO: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius (Backbeat Books), Rockers, Jazzbos & Visionaries (Billboard Books), Swing It! An Annotated History of Jive (Billboard), Legends of Jazz (Edizioni White Star), Keith Richards: A Rock 'N' Roll Life (Edizioni White Star), Here And Now: The Autobiograpy of Pat Martino (Backbeat), Ode to a Tenor Titan: The Life and Times and Music of Michael Brecker (Backbeat) and Mike Clark's memoirs, God Make Me Funky: Confessions of a Headhunter and Bad-Ass Buddhist Drummer (Backbeat).

 

A two-time winner of the Helen Oakley Dance-Robert Palmer Award for Excellence in Newspaper, Magazine, Online Feature or Review Writing (in 2004 and 2026), Milkowski received the Jazz Journalist Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. He is also a recipient of the 2015 Bruce Lundvall Award presented by the Montreal Jazz Festival.

 

Born in Milwaukee, Milkowski attended the University of Wisconsin, where he served as editor of the campus newspaper, the UWM Post. His internship at The Milwaukee Journal in 1976 led to a part-time freelance opportunity in The Journal feature department, where he began writing music reviews and feature stories. After brief stints as editor of Milwaukee Magazine and Milwaukee Impressions, he moved to New York in 1980 to become managing editor of Good Times magazine on Long Island. He has been an independent freelance writer since 1983.

 

After living in New York City for nearly 40 years (with a three-year sabbatical from 1993 to 1996 in New Orleans, where his daughter Sophie was born and where he hosted the late-night "Milkman's Matinee" radio show on WWOZ), Milkowski moved in 2018 to West Hartford, Connecticut, where he currently resides with his wife, artist Lauren Zarambo.