Chuck Mangione

Charles Frank Mangione (/mænˈdʒoʊni/ man-JOH-nee; November 29, 1940 – July 22, 2025) was an American flugelhorn player, trumpeter, actor, and composer. He came to prominence as a member of Art Blakey's band in the 1960s, and later co-led the Jazz Brothers with his brother, Gap, achieving international success in 1978 with his jazz-pop single "Feels So Good". He released more than 30 albums, beginning in the 1960s. He also appeared in various television shows, including a recurring role on King of the Hill.

Mangione was born to Italian-American parents on November 29, 1940, in Rochester, New York, where he grew up. His parents were jazz enthusiasts who owned a grocery store, Mangione Grocery. While at elementary school Mangione began music lessons, beginning with piano, but later switching to trumpet after watching the film Young Man with a Horn. With his pianist brother, Gap, he started a band in high school and played in sessions with Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis.

Mangione played with Art Blakey's band in the 1960s. He and his brother led the Mangione Brothers Sextet/Quintet, who recorded three albums for Riverside Records before Mangione branched out with other work. One of his compositions for the Mangione Brothers Sextet, "Something Different", was recorded by Cannonball Adderley on Adderley's 1961 album African Waltz. Mangione attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester from 1958 to 1963 where he started playing the flugelhorn. He then joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, filling the trumpet chair previously held by Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham, Bill Hardman, and Lee Morgan.

In the late 1960s, Mangione was a member of the National Gallery, a band. In 1968, the band released the album Performing Musical Interpretations of the Paintings of Paul Klee. He served as the director of the Eastman jazz ensemble from 1968 to 1972. In 1970, he recorded the album Friends and Love in concert with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and guest performers. Mangione's quartet with saxophonist Gerry Niewood was a popular concert and recording act throughout the 1970s. "Bellavia", recorded during the collaboration won Mangione his first Grammy Award in 1977 in the category Best Instrumental Composition. "Bellavia" was used by WHAS-TV in Louisville, Kentucky as background music for school closings; it was first used during the Blizzard of 1978.

In addition to his quartet with Niewood, Mangione had much success with his later-1970s ensemble, with Chris Vadala on saxophones and flutes, Grant Geissman on guitars, Charles Meeks on bass guitar, and James Bradley Jr. on drums. This version of Mangione's band recorded and toured behind the hit studio albums Feels So Good and Fun and Games and the Children of Sanchez soundtrack. Some band members participated in the "Tarantella" benefit concert in 1980. The song "Feels So Good" became a rare instrumental Top Ten hit, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.