[5] During his senior year of high school, at summer national stage band camp in Normal, Illinois, he was introduced to jazz pianist Marian McPartland.

[9] After leaving the University of North Texas, Mays toured in the US and Europe with Woody Herman's Thundering Herd (big band) for approximately eight months.

[12][13] Mays composed, orchestrated, and arranged as a core member of the Pat Metheny Group, playing piano, organ, synthesizers and, occasionally, trumpet, accordion,[14] agogô bells,[15] autoharp,[16] toy xylophone,[17] and electric guitar.

[18] He also composed, performed, and recorded dramatic scores for children's audiobooks, such as East of the Sun, West of the Moon, with text narrated by Max von Sydow; Moses the Lawgiver, told by Ben Kingsley; The Lion and the Lamb, narrated by Amy Grant and Christopher Reeve; and The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher and Tale of Peter Rabbit, read by Meryl Streep.

[23] Mays also composed "Distance" for Pat Metheny Group’s Grammy-winning and RIAA-certified Gold album, Still Life (Talking) (1987, Geffen), "Mindwalk"[24] in 2009 for marimba player Nancy Zeltsman, and previously "Somewhere in Maine"[25] in 1988 for her duo with violinist Sharan Leventhal, Marimolin, and "Street Dreams 3" for his solo album, Street Dreams (Geffen, 1988) with top classical performers in New York City.

[26] He collaborated with electronic keyboard instrument makers, Kurzweil and Korg, to develop their new sounds since he had great knowledge of both computer programming and music synthesis that he learned by himself.

[29] The prominent Brazilian singer-songwriter, Milton Nascimento, combined Mays' composition with Portuguese lyrics by Luis Avellar to create "Quem é Você," which was recorded on his 1991 live album, O Planeta Blue Na Estrada Do Sol.

[33] Much as Wright realized the innovative integration of different sources in creating his unique landscapes, Mays consistently sought to bring a deep, intellectual and organic appreciation of structural forms to his soundscape design, jazz composition and performance, and software development projects.