Chuck Mangione

Throughout the 1970s, Chuck Mangione was a celebrity. His purposely lightweight music was melodic pop that was upbeat, optimistic, and sometimes uplifting. Mangione's records were big sellers yet few of his fans from the era knew that his original goal was to be a bebopper. His father had often taken Chuck and his older brother Gap (a keyboardist) out to see jazz concerts, and Dizzy Gillespie was a family friend.

Chuck Mangione - The Jazz Brothers (1960) {Riverside OJCCD-997-2 rel 1998}
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© 1960, 1998 Riverside Records / Fantasy | OJCCD-997-2
Jazz / Bop / Straight-ahead Jazz / Trumpet

This 1960 recording, reissued on a 1998 CD, was not only the debut recording of trumpeter Chuck Mangione but has the first appearances on record by tenor saxophonist Sal Nistico, pianist Gap Mangione, and drummer Roy McCurdy; altoist Larry Combs and bassist Bill Saunders complete the group. "The Jazz Brothers" were based in Rochester, NY and recorded two further albums. Chuck Mangione's own fame was a decade away and, at this early point in time, he was a Dizzy Gillespie-inspired bebop trumpeter. The sextet performs "Secret Love," "Girl of My Dreams," and five straight-ahead group originals with spirit and swing. Pity that the group never really did catch on.

Chuck Mangione, the famed flugelhornist and trumpeter fills his first recording of the 21st century with some wonderfully subdued love songs whose subtle, intimate qualities may surprise those of his fans who best know his boisterous pop hits. More than simply expressing a romantic boy-girl kind of love, Mangione is playing gentle, atmospheric jazz for a wide variety of special people, real and animated. And there is no doubt that the truest love here is that between the artist and some of his old bandmates.