Bill Mays

Bill Mays possesses considerable skill at the piano, yet his frequent role supporting other artists has left him somewhat underrecognized as a jazz improviser. From the late 1960s onward he functioned as a studio musician in Los Angeles, providing accompaniment for Sarah Vaughan between 1972 and 1973 and for Al Jarreau in 1975 while handling the bulk of his assignments as a session player. Early in the 1980s he began documenting jazz performances as a sideman alongside Howard Roberts, Bud Shank, Bobby Shew, Road Work Ahead, and Mark Murphy. A 1982 duet session with Red Mitchell appeared on ITI, and he led a quintet date issued by Trend the following year. Mays relocated to New York in 1984; thereafter his collaborators included Murphy, Gerry Mulligan, Ron Carter, James Moody, Sonny Stitt, Art Pepper, and the Mel Lewis Orchestra. Late in the decade he recorded for DMP, producing duet projects with Ray Drummond, and in 1992 he issued multiple albums on Concord. Those Concord releases placed him in contrasting formats: the solo recital Live at Maybeck Recital Hall, Vol. 26 (Bill Mays at Maybeck), the trio session An Ellington Affair, the guitar-piano pairing Concord Duo, Vol. 7: Bill Mays and Ed Bickert, and the ensemble recording Mays in Manhattan. His eleventh date as leader, Summer Sketches, marked his debut on the Palmetto label in 2001; two years afterward he followed it with Going Home.