Jazz musician Chuck Mangione, who had one of the biggest pop-jazz instrumental crossover hits of all time with “Feels So Good” in the 1970s, died Tuesday at age 84.
The death was reported by multiple news outlets out of his native Rochester, NY. The city’s WROC-TV reported that the Bartolomeo & Perreto Funeral Home said the musician died in his sleep at home on Tuesday.
The flugelhorn and trumpet player won two Grammys, out of 14 nominations, in a career that spanned 30 albums. Beyond his musical success, the musician was also familiar to millions for his recurring role playing himself on the animated series “King of the Hill.”
A ubiquitous hit in 1978, “Feels So Good” reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammys.
Mangione felt the success of the tune was partly due to counterprogramming. “I think ‘Feels So Good’ was such a hit because of the Bee Gees,” he said in an interview with the Celebrity Cafe. “‘Saturday Night Fever’ had saturated radio; I think the top 6 out of l0 hits were from that album. Radio programmers couldn’t figure out what to put on instead and when somebody edited ‘Feels So Good’ from nine minutes down to three, they instantly started playing it as an alternative to what were the current top songs.”
He noted, “I do not mind having written the song at all. I just wish that I had written it in a different key, as the high D is hard to play. I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.”
That success led to Mangione being commissioned to write and perform “Give it All You Got,” the theme song for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.
On “King of the Hill,” he played himself, as a celebrity pitchman for the fictional Mega Lo Mart, and was portrayed wearing an outfit that was familiar to many from the cover for the hit album “Feels So Good.”
Of his unexpected success as an animated figure, Mangione explained to the Celebrity Cafe, “Eight months before ‘King of the Hill’ was on television, I received the script from them, describing my role as the spokesman for ‘Megalo-mart’ … My character would do things like play ‘Taps’ and switch right into ‘Feels So Good.’ I figured that since they were playing my music and to such a large audience, why not? So I jumped into the studio in New York; they would call from L.A., and then I’d see a thing that looked like me on the television screen. Many people watch that show, so it is great exposure.”
Mangione was born in Rochester on Nov. 29, 1940. He starting music lessons at age 8, starting out on piano but switching instruments after seeing the film “Young Man With a Horn.” He formed his first jazz band while he was in high school, along with his pianist brother, Gap. He graduated in 1963 from the Eastman School of Music, where he later came back as a teacher and the director of the Eastman Jazz Ensemble.
Mangione’s parents were jazz buffs who would often invite the stars of the genre over to dinner in their home, including Dizzy Gillespie, Carmen McRae and Art Blakey — whose Jazz Messengers group he would later join, establishing his serious chops.
“Art was looking around for a horn player and he called Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy said, ‘Do you remember that kid from Rochester, NY?’ and he recommended me to play with him. That was a great time because in that group was Keith Garrett and Chick Corea.”
His stint with Blakey came after he and his brother Gap formed the Jazz Brothers, who released three albums in 1960-61, while he was still studying at Eastman.
Mangione’s solo career took off with the 1970 album “Friends & Love… A Chuck Mangione Concert,” which was nominated for a 1971. The first of his releases on the Mercury label, it was recorded at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester. A single from the album, “Hill Where the Lord Hides,” marked his first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100.
He won his first Grammy for “Bellavia,” a 1976 album, and his second for the “Children of Sanchez” soundtrack, which also earned him a 1978 Golden Globe nomination.
“Feels So Good” was released as a single in December 1977, soon topping Billboard’s adult contemporary chart and making it to No. 4 on the Hot 100. The album version clocked in at 9 minutes and 42 seconds and required what he called “major surgery” to be cut down to 3:31 for radio and single release purposes.
The “Feels So Good” album was a smash in its own right, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, held back only by the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack.
He released nine albums for A&M between 1975-82, thereafter switching to Columbia for his next five releases before forming his own Feels So Good imprint in the late 1980s.
Of his signature look, he said, “As a young kid I used to wear a baseball cap, but in 1969, a hat like one I have now was given to me as a present from some good friends. Pictures were taken for the album cover with me in that hat and out on tour and after seeing the photos, before I went on tour, the record company asked, ‘Where’s the hat?’ Since then, I started wearing it all the time. No, it is not attached to my head, and no, I do not wear it in the shower. And no, I do not have gangrene from wearing it all the time!”
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