A longtime contributor to Down Beat, Jazziz, Guitar Player and The Absolute Sound magazines, Milkowski's writing has also appeared in Jazz Times, Bass Player, Modern Drummer, Acoustic Guitar, Musician, Mojo, Swing Journal, DRUM! and Interview as well as such international magazines as Jazzthing (Germany), Vibrations (Switzerland), Guitar Club (Italy), Guitar (Japan) and Hudba (Slovakia). Since moving to New York City from hometown Milwaukee in 1980, he has written over 900 sets of liner notes and over 7,000 articles for various magazines. He is also the author of eight books -- "JACO: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius" (Backbeat Books, 1995; 10th Anniversary Edition, 2005), "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) and "Here And Now: The Autobiograpy of Pat Martino (Backbeat Books, 2011). His most recent book, "Ode to a Tenor Titan: The Life and Times and Music of Michael Brecker," was published by Backbeat Books on October 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. Born in Milwaukee, he 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. Milkowski 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 Connecticut, where he currently resides with his wife, artist Lauren Zarambo.