Chuck Mangione! "Feels So Good!"

Chuck Mangione is a Flugelhorn player (and composer) who achieved international success in 1977 with his jazz-pop single, "Feels So Good." To this day, this is one of my favorite instrumental songs of all time.

As a trumpet player myself in middle school and high school in the 80's, I truly appreciated the musicianship and brilliant writing that went into creating this song. Chuck "The Man" Mangione's playing as well as the incredible guitar solo by Grant Geissman and Charles Meeks' groovy Bass lines were amazing! One thing you might find interesting is that drummer James Bradley Jr. was only 18 years old when he recorded this track. I'm speechless. The 9 minute original extended version has Chris Vadala's awesome sax playing! This song is like no other! It's phenomenal!  

I can remember trying to play this song when I first started on the trumpet. Musically, I could only take the song so far before the notes would go extremely out of reach. This guy was so super talented! This song is a masterpiece! Chuck Mangione is like the "Chuck Norris" of music. No one can beat him! I heard this once about Chuck Mangione: "Chuck Mangione was in all 6 Star war Movies.......As the Force!"

One of the funniest tidbits of information I found out about Chuck Mangione was that in addition to music, he had a recurring voice-over role on an animated television series. In it he portrays himself as a celebrity spokesman for a grocery store chain, although his animated form appears much younger than his current age, more closely resembling how he looked in the late 1970s. In the context of the series, a recurring joke is that whatever tune he plays on his flugelhorn, inevitably shifts into "Feels So Good" after a few bars.  On his final episode, Chuck Mangione plays the National Anthem which of course segues into "Feels So Good".  Afterwards, Chuck states during a group therapy session that "Every song I play now sounds like 'Feels So Good'."

Now that’s pretty funny!