Adobe Illustrator gradient nonsense

Kurt, let me be among the first to say that I could be wrong in my interpretation. I seem to remember it happening just that one time before(!).

As far as I can see this is just what Jason is looking for, Peter.

One gradient fill across multiple (compound) objects.

Am I overlooking something?

Creating a compound path applies the gradient across all the paths, as if it were one solid path, not across each individual path. You would only get on annotator, but the look is quite different.

Definitely should create a compound path first. A work around is to drag the gradient annotator with the objects selcted. 

The gradient is applied separately to each of the four shapes, so it behaves as four different gradients; thus, four annotators. When you group them, the gradients are still applied separately—there is no gradient applied to the group, so there is no gradient annotator.

Peter

Well, then you may first create a compound path, apply the gradient and then use the Gradient tool with just one annotator.

You may try View menu > Hide Gradient Annotator.