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A talented and respected jazz trumpeter who achieved popular success with his melodic, uncluttered music.
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. While Chuck studied at the Eastman School, the two Mangiones co-led a bop quintet called the Jazz Brothers who recorded several albums for Jazzland, often with Sal Nistico on tenor…

The early-1960s group the Jazz Brothers featured trumpeter Chuck Mangione and pianist Gap Mangione in a quintet also including up-and-coming tenor Sal Nistico (shortly before he joined Woody Herman's Orchestra), bassist Steve Davis and drummer Roy McCurdy; lots of young talent in that band. Their second of three recordings (the first has yet to be reissued) has reappeared as this CD. Those only familiar with Chuck Mangione's later work will be surprised to hear him playing bop-oriented music and showing the strong influence of Dizzy Gillespie. Four standards (including "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" and "Just You, Just Me") alternate with an obscurity and three group originals. The music has spirit, even if it is a bit derivative and predictable.

Though much less expansive than Mangione's other Mercury concerts (only 37 minutes on a single CD or LP), Land of Make Believe is the most successful of the lot, a winning combination of attractive tunes, big-thinking orchestrations, just enough jazz content, and a genuinely felt sense of idealism. Here there is no dead weight; all of the material is very engaging and the combined forces of Mangione's quartet and the Hamilton (Ontario) Philharmonic are on fire. The performance of Mangione's "Legend of the One-Eyed Sailor" still exerts a ferocious jolt of life-affirming energy, "El Gato Triste" is an attractive Latin number, and the buoyant "Gloria" from The Mass of St. Bernard with the Horsehead Chamber Singers makes one want to hear more…

Rock & roll's prime innovator, thanks to his detailed songwriting, dazzling lyrics, and clear, economical guitar licks.
Of all the early breakthrough rock & roll artists, none was more important to the development of the music than Chuck Berry. He was its greatest songwriter, the main shaper of its instrumental voice, one of its greatest guitarists, and one of its greatest performers. Quite simply, without him there would be no Beatles, Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, nor myriad others. There would be no standard "Chuck Berry guitar intro," the instrument's clarion call to get the joint rockin' in any setting. The clippety-clop rhythms of rockabilly would not have been mainstreamed into the now standard 4/4 rock & roll beat…

Two Great Guitars (1964). Two Great Guitars is a studio album by Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, released in August 1964. It was the first studio album issued by Berry after his release from prison. The two men were friends, and both recorded for Chess. The album consists of two lengthy spontaneous instrumental jams plus a couple of recently recorded instrumentals by the two guitarists. The album cover shows a Gibson ES-350T owned by Berry and a guitar created by Diddley.
The Super Super Blues Band (1968). This is easily a "super super blues bust." Power trios, of course, were hip in the late '60s - even at down-home Chess Studios, where ad hoc "supergroups" were assembled for 1967's Super Blues and its sequel, Super Super Blues Band…