Leader of Peabody Jazz Orchestra talks about value of playing in big band

New York–based drummer Devin Gray says that a large-ensemble job he picked up over the summer was like many paying gigs: Show up and then find out who you're playing with and what you're playing. Some of the music was that of Charles Mingus, which Gray knew from his undergraduate days playing in a large ensemble that at the time was called the Peabody Big Band. "So I show up 5 minutes before the show, set up, and the leader's just handing out tunes" on sheet music, says Gray, who graduated from the Peabody Institute's Jazz Studies Department in 2006. "Three of them were Mingus tunes—and two of them, I remembered the whole arrangement. And when I was playing those tunes I could remember playing in the [Peabody] big band. And I was like, Whoa—I know this music." ...Read the full article here:http://hub.jhu.edu/gazette/2014/november-december/datebook-peabody-jazz-story#