Howard Roberts (1929-1992) doesn't get much of a look-in when jazz guitar is discussed. Buried in the Hollywood studios for the major part of his career and mostly valued by other guitarists, he seldom toured, occasionally playing club gigs around LA when not recording or teaching. Happily for us, Fresh Sound have now collected four of his 1950s jazz sessions, 19 tracks in all, the first eight originally issued on Verve as by Bert Dahlander and his Swedish Jazz, albeit that ‘Dale’ was the only Swede on the session. The two subsequent sessions came out on Kapp under Williams' name. Largely invisible to jazz fans he may have been, though he did record widely in a variety of jazz contexts, on this evidence Roberts was clearly a superior technician with exceptional jazz chops, comparable at the very least to Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis. Just listening to him on the opening quartet session here is to behold a master chordal player and a clever single-line improviser with a good, bright sound, swinging pleasingly over Counce's supple beat, with ‘Dale’ (formerly Nils-Bertil Dahlander) neatly playing time. The other joy here is Victor Feldman and what a pleasure it is to recall just how magnificent a soloist he was. The wonderfully intricate ‘Johnson's Wax’ by Terry Gibbs swings like mad, with Victor relishing every harmonic and thematic nuance, his vibes solo on Horace Silver's ‘Room 608’ is like a masterclass in creative fluency and improvisatory daring. The four-track session with Jolly and Levey swings harder if anything, with Jolly's bebop touch again impressive, Roberts giving himself more solo space, especially on the fast-paced ‘All the Things You Are’. Williams is no slouch either on the final seven tracks, energetic and boppishly percussive in the manner of Elmo Hope, Roberts positively flying on the pianist's ‘Aunt Orsavella’. Quite a lady evidently. Good to know more about Mr Roberts add him to your list of top West Coast guitar men.