Howard Mancel Roberts (October 2, 1929 – June 28, 1992) was an American jazz guitarist, educator, and session musician.

Roberts was born in Phoenix, Arizona to Damon and Vesta Roberts, and began playing guitar at the age of 8 — a Gibson manufactured $18 Kalamazoo student model acoustic given to him by his parents at Christmas. He took lessons from Horace Hatchett, who commented to Roberts’ father that Roberts, at the age of 15, “… has his own style of playing and there’s nothing else I can show him. He plays better than I do.” By the time he was 15, he was playing professionally locally, predominantly blues-based music, where he learned from a number of black musicians, trumpeter Art Farmer being among that group. In 1992 Roberts was quoted in The Independent Newsletter by Steve Voce saying he considered that early experience to be “the most valuable” to him in his development as a player. At the time Roberts and his close friend and roommate, guitarist Howard Heitmeyer, would start their day by practicing 3 or 4 hours, catch an afternoon movie, returning to practice until they went to the clubs in the evening.

When Roberts reached the age of 17 he was involved with a class that was begun by Joseph Schillinger, a composer/theorist. Fabian Andre had been commissioned to teach the class. Some of the students who had taken the class included George Gershwin, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Oscar Levant. Schillinger applied mathematical principles to art which appealed to Roberts. To be able to take the course he made a deal with Andre; he’d sweep the floors after class to help defray the cost of his tuition. By the late ‘40s Roberts was playing with one of his boyhood friends, Pete Jolly – a well known jazz pianist – and they toured Washington and Idaho in early 1950.