With initial mixed sentiment over some sources, reviewers observed that Lord borrowed heavily from, but expanded upon, the major comprehensive jazz discography work of Walter Bruyninckx, whose research was, and still is (as of 2013), ongoing.

Individuals — particularly record collectors, musicologists, and jazz historians — have, and continue to provide data.

[1] The project is organized alphabetically by bandleader, and within each individual entry, chronologically by recording session.

For each session, it identifies track and album titles, personnel and instrumentation, location and date, and recording label and numbers.

Some commercially available cassette releases have been included in The Jazz Discography, but the publisher makes no claim to completeness.