About

My name is Maxwell. I spent six years in New Orleans (2019-2025) and fell in love with the city, its music, and its culture. I spent my nights chasing the thriving live music scene and eventually started photographing as much of it as I could.

Between the sheer intertwinedness of the music and the culture, the knowledge gurus I was lucky enough to be surrounded by, and above all, the DJs on WWOZ 90.7FM, I absorbed more musical history than I ever thought possible.

WWOZ is entirely volunteer-run, community-funded, and is the world's (if not the universe's) premier Jazz & Heritage station. I love it so much that I get genuine FOMO when I'm not listening.

So I built something to make sure I never miss a beat.

Jazzapedia started as a personal scraper that watches WWOZ's playlists around the clock, capturing every song the DJs spin. From there it snowballed: the scraper matches tracks to Spotify, AI-powered research generates artist biographies, and everything feeds into the encyclopedia you're browsing now.

What began as a handful of notes has grown into a living catalog of over 4,500 artists spanning the full lineage of jazz, funk, brass band, R&B, gospel, zydeco, and everything else that makes New Orleans the musical capital of the world.