Chuck Mangione, whose limpid fluegelhorn ruled the upper reaches of Billboard’s adult contemporary charts in the 1970s and ’80s with a culture-permeating lilt that helped create the genre known as “smooth jazz,” died on Tuesday at his home in Rochester, N.Y. He was 84.
His death was confirmed by his family in a statement, which did not specify a cause.
Mr. Mangione was a true pop star with an instantly recognizable signature silhouette: bewhiskered, his long hair crowned by a turned-down felt fedora. He was nominated 14 times for Grammy Awards and won twice: in 1976 for best instrumental composition, “Bellavia,” and in 1978 for best pop instrumental performance, for the title track from his score to the film “The Children of Sanchez.”
Mangione hits could be grandiose, like “Land of Make Believe,” or lightly funky, like the aptly named “Feels So Good,” a Top 10 hit in 1978. Always melodic, his cotton-candy hooks could bore into listeners’ senses with a mood-elevating rush.
“Feels So Good,” released in 1977, became a double-platinum album, made Mr. Mangione a superstar and cemented his style.Credit… A&M
Mr. Mangione’s smooth jazz borrowed extensively from fusion — the infusion of electronic instruments into the jazz mainstream that Miles Davis had spearheaded in the late 1960s — dosing it with gossamer Flamenco-ish guitar and a “Disco” backbeat, the perfect sonic pillow for his lyrical fluegelhorn. The result was a pop-jazz hybrid with enormous commercial appeal.
“Feels So Good,” released in October 1977 as the title track off what quickly became a double-platinum album, made Mr. Mangione a superstar and cemented his style. It was infused with jazzlike licks but light on true jazz improvisation. Still, it brought the notion of jazz to a vast music-buying public that, for at least a decade, had been focused almost exclusively on rock ’n’ roll and its offshoots.
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