Chuck Mangione, a composer and jazz flugelhorn player, passed away in his sleep Tuesday at his Rochester, New York, home. He was eighty-four. In the 1970s and 1980s, Mangione’s mellow jazz compositions were the number one songs on the Billboard adult contemporary charts. He won an Emmy and two Grammys along the way, and he appeared as a regular guest star on a Fox animated series.
Chuck Mangione made a lasting impression on American society that extended far beyond the jazz community because to his beard, long hair, and brown felt fedora. The music he composed and performed combined pop and electric sounds with the warmth of the flugelhorn and powerful melodic hooks. His instrument, the flugelhorn, was larger and mellower than a regular trumpet. The song “Feels So Good,” from the double-platinum album of the same name, peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at the top of the adult contemporary chart in 1978, demonstrating the popularity of his music for a while.
Mangione spent his entire life in Rochester, where he was born on November 29, 1940. He started taking music lessons in primary school after watching the Kirk Douglas movie Young Man with a Horn, and his parents ran a grocery store. He decided to play the trumpet. In high school, he and his brother Gaspare, also known as Gap, formed a jazz band. At the Ridge Crest Inn outside of the city, the two sat in with jazz greats Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespi. Gillespie, who Mangione referred to as “my musical father,” gave him a trumpet when he was fifteen years old.
Mangione began playing the flugelhorn at the Eastman School of Music while pursuing a bachelor’s degree in music. However, he actually got his start on the trumpet when performing with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, which at the time also included Keith Jarrett and Chick Corea.
Mangione had gone it alone by the early 1970s.He received his first of 14 Grammy nominations for the song “Hill Where the Lord Hides” from Friends & Love, a concert of his music with the Rochester Philharmonic that was produced and released privately before being signed by Mercury Records. Another live CD featuring Esther Satterfield’s vocals, Land of Make Believe, received extensive alternative FM play in 1973.
From there, Mangione was signed to Herb Alpert’s label, A&M Records, and he went on to become a chart success with songs like “Chase the Clouds Away” and “Feels So Good.” The song “Bellavia” and the title theme from the movie “Children of Sanchez” earned him his two Grammys in the 1970s. In addition, Mangione composed music for the Summer Olympics in Montreal in 1976 and the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid in 1980. He sang “Give It All You Got,” which won an Emmy, at the latter’s closing ceremony.
Over the years, Mangione performed with symphony orchestras, went on TV, and went on a lot of tours. He created and taught at Eastman’s jazz program, dedicating a significant portion of his life to music education. Additionally, he invited youngsters to play onstage at his matinee children’s concerts and performed with high school bands. Later, when he voiced a humorous version of himself on King of the Hill as a pitchman for the department store Mega Lo Mart, he gained recognition from a new generation.
And that trademark brown felt hat, too? Along with the “Feels So Good” soundtrack and a wealth of photos and records that Mangione gave to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 2009, it is housed there.
Copyright 2025 NPR
