Chuck Mangione, Jazz Musician & ‘Feels So Good’ Hitmaker, Dies

Chuck Mangione, the jazz musician and composer who scored a top 5 pop hit in 1978 with “Feels So Good,” has died. The flugelhornist, trumpeter and bandleader died at his home in Rochester, N.Y., on Tuesday, July 22, 2025, of an undisclosed cause. Mangione’s family confirmed his death but did not offer any further details. He was 84.

In a career that found him releasing more than 30 albums, Mangione’s music spanned jazz stylings from bop to fusion, but it was the pop-jazz of “Feels So Good” that ultimately brought him the greatest recognition. The instrumental was written by Mangione and served as the title track of a 1977 album on A&M Records, which itself rose to #2 on the Billboard LPs chart.

Charles Frank Mangione was born Nov. 29, 1940, in Rochester, and honed his chops in the band of famed jazz drummer Art Blakey in the 1960s. Mangione also recorded as a leader for the Riverside label in the ’60s, and co-led a band with his pianist brother Gap Mangione. Chuck Mangione moved over to the Mercury label in 1970 and then A&M in the middle of that decade, where he finally found a large-scale audience with the release of the “Feels So Good” album and single toward the end of that decade.

An ad for the album that appeared in the music trades.

Mangione’s 1978 release Children of Sanchez, the soundtrack of a same-named film, won the Best Pop Instrumental Album Grammy for the musician, and the track “Bellavia,” from that two-LP set, took the Grammy in the category of Best Instrumental Composition.

Related: In the previous decade, hit jazz singles were a common occurrence

That album was followed in 1980 by Fun and Games, which reached #8, becoming his final top 10 album. He switched to Columbia Records in the early ’80s, but none of the titles he released for that company came close to matching the A&M albums sales-wise.

Mangione also did some acting and most notably, according to his Wikipedia entry, “had a recurring role on the animated television series King of the Hill, as a fictional version of himself who served as a celebrity spokesman for the ‘Mega Lo Mart.’”

Related: Musician and celebrity deaths of 2025

• About
• Latest Posts

Jeff Tamarkin

Best Classic Bands Editor Jeff Tamarkin has been a prolific music journalist for more than four decades. He is formerly the editor of Goldmine, CMJ and Relix magazines, has written for dozens of other publications and has authored liner notes for more than 80 CDs. Jeff has also served on the Nominating Committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and as a consultant to the Grammys. His first book was 'Got a Revolution! The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane.' He is also the co-author of 'Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc.,' with Howard Kaylan.

Latest posts by Jeff Tamarkin (see all)

• Woodstock Performers: Where Are They Now? - 08/11/2025
• Bobby Whitlock—Derek & the Dominos Keyboardist—Dies at 77 - 08/10/2025
• Sweet Dreams: 13 Timeless Early ’80s British Earworms - 08/07/2025