Chuck Mangione

America’s premier flugelhorn player carved out a place in American pop culture with his chilled-out, untroubled take on jazz. Born in Rochester, New York, in 1940, Charles Frank Mangione was in bands with his brother Gap during his youth, and he studied at his hometown’s Eastman School of Music before joining Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers as a trumpeter in the early ’60s. In 1968, now focusing mostly on the flugelhorn, he formed a quartet with saxophonist Gerry Niewood. Mangione has long been known for bridging the gap between jazz and pop, with songs like 1975’s dreamy “Chase the Clouds Away”, 1977's stretched-out light-funk composition “Feels So Good” and the percolating theme to the zany 1981 car-race smash The Cannonball Run keeping his smoothed-out sounds in the musical mainstream. He recorded a smattering of albums, toured and appeared as a recurring guest on the animated sitcom King of the Hill in the decades that followed his late-’70s commercial peak. Mangione passed away in July 2025 at the age of 84.