Chuck Mangione, the fedora-sporting flugelhorn and trumpet player whose 1977 smooth jazz hit “Feels So Good” left an indelible mark on American pop culture, has died. In a statement to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Mangione’s family shared that he “peacefully passed away in his sleep at his home in Rochester, New York” on Tuesday, July 22. A cause of death was not provided. Mangione was 84.
Born in Rochester on November 29, 1940, Mangione began playing piano at age eight, though he soon switched to the trumpet after seeing the Kirk Douglas film “Young Man With a Horn.” His older brother, Gaspare, was himself a pianist, and their father would frequently take both boys to see jazz shows at the local Ridgecrest Inn, after which he’d invite the performers to have dinner at the family’s home. One of these musicians was Dizzy Gillespie, who gifted a teenage Mangione one of his trumpets.
As high schoolers, Gaspare and Chuck played in a quintet called the Jazz Brothers. In 1958, the younger Mangione attended Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, where he began studying the flugelhorn. The Jazz Brothers put out their self-titled debut album on Riverside Records imprint Jazzland in 1960, then shared two more the following year. After graduating, Mangione played in Woody Herman and Maynard Ferguson’s big band ensembles, then joined Art Blakely’s Jazz Messengers thanks to a recommendation from Gillespie.
By the late ’60s, Mangione had returned to Eastman as director of the school’s jazz ensemble. His big break as a solo artist arrived via a 1970 performance of his original material alongside the Rochester Philharmonic, which was recorded and privately released as Friends & Love…A Chuck Mangione Concert. The album got Mangione signed to Mercury Records, and yielded his first Grammy nomination—of an eventual 14—for “Hill Where the Lord Hides.”
Mangione graduated from Mercury to A&M in 1975. Shortly thereafter, he won a Grammy Award—Best Instrumental Composition for “Bellavia,” a tribute to his mother—and contributed a song, “Chase the Clouds Away,” to the 1976 Summer Olympic Games in Montreal. However, it was Mangione’s 1977 LP Feels So Good that cemented his legacy. The album went double platinum and hit No. 2 on the Billboard albums chart, while a radio edit of its title track—the original clocks in at 9:31—peaked at No. 4 on the Hot 100.
“Feels So Good” has since appeared on the soundtracks to Fargo, Zombieland, and Doctor Strange. During the ’90s and 2000s, Mangione held a recurring role in Mike Judge’s beloved animated sitcom King of the Hill, where he played himself as a spokesman for the fictional supermarket chain Mega Lo Mart. (The store’s slogan: “where shopping feels so good.”)
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