Chuck Mangione
@ The St. Lucia Jazz Festival 8 –11 May 1997
(Part of a series of snap shot reviews related to the 1997 Jazz festival)

Biography

This year’s sixth annual Jazz festival 8 -11 May attracted many thousands of Jazz fans and music aficionados worldwide. Over the following four days the already scorching St Lucia heat would intensify within the many indoor and open-air venues.

New York born Chuck Mangione began playing piano at an early age. Though his family was not necessarily musical, he and his brother Gap Mangione were constantly listening to music from the radio in their father’s grocer store. After being prompted to choose a band instrument at school and watching the film ‘Young Man With A Horn’, Chuck decided to switch to the trumpet.

Chuck first came to the forefront playing the trumpet with The Jazz Brothers band, where he performed with his older brother. His style has been likened to his main influence and mentor Dizzy Gillespie.

Chuck eventually explored other avenues with Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers following in the footsteps of players such as Clifford Brown, Kenny Dorham, Bill Hardman, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard.

The album ‘Land Of Make Believe’ was released on the Mercury record label before signing to the A&M label, which delivered ‘Chase The Clouds Away’ and ‘Bellavia’ (“beautiful way”), which won Mangione his first Grammy award.

The late 1970’s saw Chuck release ‘The Children Of Sanchez’ soundtrack, which won him a second Grammy award. The hit album and single ‘Feels So Good’ was released soon after.

After many successful projects in the1980’s, Chuck signed with Columbia records, which spawned several albums including ‘Eyes Of the Veiled Temptress’, which contained the slow jam classic ‘Do you ever think about me’. Chuck then decided to take a three-year break from listening and playing music. He returned to the musical arena in 1994 writing and recording new material for forthcoming releases.

Review

Chuck Mangione’s initial stage presence seemed slightly muted. As though he was not completely aware of his surroundings or intentions. He shyly greeted his audience who in turn also seemed slightly unsure of what they were about to receive.

Mangione has the potential of reproducing a nimble, clear and smooth tonal excellence through his trumpet, giving you a sense of delicacy like a baby’s touch, with military timing, but for some reason he was not able to deliver this time round.
He did slowly warm up, but not quite enough to match the temperature of his surroundings.

There were brief moments of excellence during his performance of "Land Of Make Believe". This stimulated the audience to eagerly offer appreciation, almost as if to encourage Mangione to repeat his moment of clarity. Unfortunately the spark only seemed to fully return during the performance of his 1980’s classic "Feels So Good".

Robin Francis
© Michael Valentine Studio