Chuck Mangione, trumpeter and composer, famous jazz musician and twice winner of the Grammy Award, has died at age 84. His international fame emerged in 1977 with his single Feels So Goodan issue that became a soft jazz anthem. In addition to his musical career, Mangione was also known for his participation as a voice actor in the animated series King of the Hill.
Although the news has transcended this Thursday, the artist died days before, on Tuesday, July 22, while sleeping at his home in Rochester, New York, his lawyer confirmed. Mangione had been retired from music since 2015.
“Chuck’s love story with music has been characterized by its overflowing energy, its enthusiasm without reservations and the pure joy that radiated from the stage,” said his family in a statement to the newspaper Rochester Democrat & Chroniclewhere also highlights the appreciation that the musician showed for the public, sitting on the edge of the stage after his concerts, signing autographs to the fans who stayed to greet the band.
Feels So Good, Its greatest success in a long career of 30 albums since the 60s, is a usual piece in contemporary jazz stations. The theme reached fourth place in the Billboard Hot 100 list and stood at the top of the contemporary adult ranking of the same publication. The melody was recognized in 1980 by the publication Current Biography as “the most recognized melody since Michelle de The Beatles”.
Mangione’s musical vocation manifested himself from a young age in his hometown of Rochester, where he formed, with his brother pianist gap, the band The Jazz Brotherswith which he recorded three albums. He grew up in a home where his father exposed him to the great jazz of the fifties, including Dizzy Gillespie, a family friend who had dinner with them frequently. His talent was then consolidated during his passage through the renowned Eastman School of Music, where he studied between 1958 and 1963, a decisive period in the development of his technique and artistic sensibility.
After his great milestone, Mangione also composed Chase the Clouds Awayadopted by the 1976 or Olympic Games Give It All You Gotcreated especially for the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Planid, where he interpreted it during the closing ceremony.
Mangione won two Grammy awards from a total of 14 nominations. The first was in 1977, in the category of best instrumental composition, by Bellaviaa piece he dedicated to his mother. In 1979 he obtained the second, in the category of best pop instrumental interpretation, by The Children of Sanchez. The latter, soundtrack of the film of the same name, was also awarded a Golden Globe.
At the end of the 1990s, Mangione’s music attracted new fans when he played a version of himself in the Fox chain animated series King of the Hillas a voice of the fictitious mega-lo-Mart supermarket, with the slogan “Shopping Feels So Good” (something like “Buy feels good”). He also composed the music for the special episode of Valentine’s Day of 1998.
In 1988 he played in Spain and this is remembered by a chronicle of Jorge Flo for this newspaper, where the musician’s ability to “manage the night at will” stood out: “It does not produce explosions of joy and history, but it has all the ingredients to never be rejected. Mangione knows and uses this absence of tension to make its complicit public, as when it descends from the scenario to play among the attendees and invites you in love While the band continues to play. Also care yourlook-Gabanes, gabardines and the inevitable hat-, adapting it consequently. His personality and music are made at irresistible moments (…) Many went in love with Mangione’s music. Or of him. “