In the fall of 2016 I typed the following as the intro to a newly created list at Rate Your Music called The Liner Notes for this Jazz Album:

I was listening to a Paul Desmond/Gerry Mulligan album while reading the liner notes and was thrilled to find the story of how Blight of the Fumble Bee got its name. The stories and analysis contained on the back of jazz albums are slowly being lost to time. To combat this I’m going to transcribe liner notes and reviews with the goal of digital listeners having the same access to knowledge as the folks that originally bought the LPs once did.

Nearly a decade later, that goal is still the same. I’ve now created what I hope is an intuitive space with reviews and liner notes for over 500 albums all under one roof. No paywalls here. No solicitations for money or any reason to provide an email address and a password. This website is a tribute not only to the musicians, but also to the journalists whose interviews and first-hand knowledge have taught me so much. Their work, from liner notes of the biggest albums all the way to the smallest of weekly newspaper columns, should not be forgotten.

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For a little more background, the show Today’s Good News on KMHD 89.1 interviewed me about the site in late November, 2025. You can listen to the six minute interview here:

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I don’t accept donations, so traffic is how I determine the success of this site. Andrew Hickey of A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs puts it best when he ends his podcasts with “Word of mouth is the best way to get information out about any creative work. So please, if you like this, tell someone.”

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I do not own any of the words on this website. Nearly everything you’ll read here is a reproduction of either an album’s liner notes, an out-of-print periodical, or a link to a blog or other account that has given me permission to point you to their work. I do not make money from this website. In fact if you count subscriptions, reference library purchases, and webhosting fees, plus the thousands of hours in opportunity costs over the past years, I’m losing money. With that being said, if you are verified a rights holder to any information contained here and wish to not have your work reproduced please contact me and I’ll remove it immediately.