Howard arrived in London from his native Australia in 1969, joining the band Caparius led by saxophonist Clive Stevens, alongside guitarist Peter Martin and bassist Neville Whitehead.
The band's final line-up, in 1971, replaced Martin with future Isotope guitarist/leader Gary Boyle and pianist Dave MacRae.
Howard first came to the attention of Soft Machine when Robert Wyatt left in August 1971[1] and auditions for a potential replacement were held.
In the end, Wyatt changed his mind, but Softs saxophonist Elton Dean borrowed Howard and fellow Caparian Whitehead as the rhythm section in his extracurricular Just Us group.
Howard remained in Dean's group, now christened Just Us, for one more year, but his trail went cold after 1972, although there was one interesting postscript when, in typical Canterbury Scene fashion, he participated in the one-off Lol Coxhill-Richard Sinclair Quintet assembled for a French jazz festival in late 1975, alongside Dave MacRae and ex-East Of Eden violinist Dave Arbus.