Howard Roberts Quartet with Bill Mays in 1981's Turning to Spring

 

If only, we were turning to spring...  More like turning to the dead of winter.  Or turning to the rolling over in the grave.  Or turning into zombies.  Turning to the makeshift morgues...

For a big change in mood for these very dark times here's another pretty and laid-back jazz album that is almost identical to the predecessor post featuring again the keyboardist Bill Mays that will bring you back, I guarantee you, to a time long before pandemic viruses.  Bill's compositional contributions are the highlight here. Note the delicate expressiveness achieved on the electric keys + guitar interplay on No Hurry:

On the database page you can see the credits for songwriting are all over the place, luckily there's only one throwaway jazz standard in Hoagy Carmichael's hoary old Skylark who I'd love to shoot out of the sky with a skeet rifle in mid-song.

Most likely the name Howard Roberts is well known (ha ha ha!) among the true progressive cognoscenti because in the first half of the 70s he put out two tremendously inventive and creative progressive fusion albums in Antelope Freeway (1971) and Equinox Express Elevator (1975) and I hope everyone knows and has those already.  So far as I know that pair were the only masterpieces, and I see tons and tons of dross in his long, long discography. 

More from Bill Mays shortly.