Chuck Mangione is 82 years old today.
A flugelhorn player, trumpeter and composer, Mangione achieved international success in 1977 with his jazz-pop single, "Feels So Good." He has released more than thirty albums since 1960.
Born and raised in Rochester, New York, Mangione and his pianist brother, Gap, led the Jazz Brothers group which recorded three albums for Riverside Records. He attended the Eastman School of Music from 1958 to 1963, and afterwards joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, for which he filled the trumpet seat, previously held by greats such as Clifford Brown, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham, Bill Hardman and Lee Morgan.
In the late 1960s, Mangione was a member of the band, The National Gallery, which in 1968 released the album Performing Musical Interpretations of the Paintings of Paul Klee.
Mangione served as director of the Eastman jazz ensemble from 1968 to 1972, and in 1970, he returned to recording with the album Friends and Love, recorded in concert with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and numerous guest performers.
Mangione's quartet with saxophonist Gerry Niewood was a popular concert and recording act throughout the 1970s. Niewood and bandmember Coleman Mellett were among those killed when Continental Airlines Flight 3407 crashed into a Buffalo, New York, area house on February 12, 2009.