Chuck Mangione, the Rochester-born jazz trumpeter who rocketed to worldwide fame with his 1978 album “Feels So Good,” has died. He was 84.
Mangione died from natural causes on Tuesday at his home in Rochester, his family told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle.
Though “Feels So Good” was his most famous composition, Mangione released dozens of albums during his lengthy career and won two Grammy Awards among 14 nominations.
Mangione’s incredible feel for the trumpet and the flugelhorn helped him achieve fame few modern-day jazz musicians could attain. When “Feels So Good” was released in 1978, it reached No. 2 on the charts, behind only one of the best-selling albums of all time, the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack.
His 1975 composition “Chase the Clouds Away” was part of the soundtrack to the 1976 Montreal Olympics, but that was far from his only Olympic contribution. At the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, NBC used Mangione’s “Give It All You Got” as its main theme, and Mangione performed the song at the closing ceremony.
“For a long time I lived in the shell of the so–called jazz musician, who said: ‘To hell with the people. I’m the artist, I know what’s right, and I’m going to play for myself. If they like it, fine; if they don’t, too bad,’” Mangione told Les Tomkins in 1972. “Well, that’s partially true, but you can still maintain your musical conviction and try to communicate with people.”
Born Nov. 29, 1940, in Rochester, Mangione was initially just one member of a multitalented musical family in the Western New York city. He and his brother, Gap, played various clubs in Rochester.
Mangione’s big break came in 1970, when Rochester’s orchestra allowed him to compose his own show. That became “Friends and Love,” the breakthrough double album that catapulted his career.
He earned his first Grammy Award in 1977, winning Best Instrumental Composition for “Bellavia.” Two years later, he won Best Pop Instrumental Performance for “Children of Sanchez.”
Mangione’s talent drew the attention of TV producer Mike Judge, who loved his music and created a role and recurring bit for the jazz star in his animated show “King of the Hill.”
“I figured that since they were playing my music and to such a large audience, why not?” Mangione said in a 2000 interview. “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.”
In 2012, Rochester founded its Music Hall of Fame, and Mangione was inducted as one of the initial members.
“If you’re honest and play with love, people will sit down and listen,” he said at the time. “My music is the sum of all I have experienced.”
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