Steve Gray was a pianist, composer, and arranger.

Gray was born in Middlesbrough

Middlesbrough

Middlesbrough is a large town situated on the south bank of the River Tees in north east England, that sits within the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire...

, England. At ten, he began teaching himself to play the piano. He joined the Middlesbrough Junior Orchestra, at first playing the bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

, but later switching to the saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

. The orchestra was directed by Ron Aspery, who would go on to create the fusion group Back Door.

During the 1970s he played sessions for Quincy Jones

Quincy Jones

Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...

, Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini was an American composer, conductor and arranger, best remembered for his film and television scores. He won a record number of Grammy Awards , plus a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1995...

, Michel Legrand

Michel Legrand

Michel Jean Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist...

, Lalo Schifrin

Lalo Schifrin

Lalo Schifrin is an Argentine composer, pianist and conductor. He is best known for his film and TV scores, such as the "Theme from Mission: Impossible". He has received four Grammy Awards and six Oscar nominations...

, Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee was an American jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress in a career spanning six decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman's big band, she forged a sophisticated persona, evolving into a multi-faceted artist and...

, Sammy Davis Jr and John Barry

John Barry (composer)

John Barry Prendergast, OBE was an English conductor and composer of film music. He is best known for composing the soundtracks for 12 of the James Bond films between 1962 and 1987...

.

Gray joined John Williams'

John Williams (guitarist)

John Christopher Williams is an Australian classical guitarist, and a long-term resident of the United Kingdom. In 1973, he shared a Grammy Award win in the 'Best Chamber Music Performance' category with Julian Bream for Julian and John .-Biography:John Williams was born on 24 April 1941 in...

 band Sky

Sky (band)

Sky was a British instrumental group that specialised in fusing a variety of musical styles including light rock, progressive rock, classical and jazz. The group's best known members were classical guitarist John Williams, bass player Herbie Flowers Sky was a British instrumental group that...

 in 1981, replacing Francis Monkman

Francis Monkman

Francis Monkman is an English rock, classical and film score composer, and a founding member of the progressive rock band Curved Air.-Career:...

 on keyboards.

Following Sky's retirement in 1995, Steve Gray continued his career as a respected composer (which he had been carrying out in parallel to his work with Sky). His compositions include two operas, a requiem mass for jazz big band and choir, a guitar concerto and a piano concerto written for French jazz pianist Martial Solal

Martial Solal

Martial Solal is a French jazz pianist and composer, who is probably most widely known for the music he wrote for Jean-Luc Godard's debut feature film À bout de souffle .-Biography:...

. He also provided a full orchestration of the works of Brian Eno

Brian Eno

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

 (in collaboration with the original composer). From 1991, he worked closely with the North German Radio (NDR) Big Band in Hamburg (at the invitation of singer and composer Norma Winstone

Norma Winstone

Norma Ann Winstone MBE is a British jazz singer and lyricist. In a career spanning over forty years she is best known for her wordless improvisations....

) and from 1998 he worked as guest professor of composition and arrangement in the jazz institute of Berlin's Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler

Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler

The " in Berlin, Germany is one of the leading music conservatories in Europe. It was established in East Berlin in 1950 as the ' because the older was in West Berlin...

.
Gray also composed production music for such labels as Amphonic, KPM and Bruton.