I wish Chuck would put out more albums. The last good one was the "Feeling is Back" album. I hope he doesn't disappear like he did in the eighties and ninety's. I am not a big fan of smooth jazz, but I dig the albums that were put out in the 70's by Chuck. He's the reason that I got hooked on to the flugelhorn.
I also am a big Chuck Mangione fan. He is currently touring and has a new DVD out (actually from a concert in 1989). Chuck is also the reason I first began playing the trumpet. I have everything he ever recorded starting witht the Jazz Brothers back in the 1960's. Maybe I'll transcribe one of his early solos and submit it to JazzTrumpetSolos.com one day...
I am not a Chuck Mangione fan, but I have always been intrigued by an album he appears on when he was a member of Art Blakey's Messengers. As it happens, Keith Jarrett was the pianist on the date. It is an unsual pairing of musicians, to say the least. Never heard it, but I'm hoping to find it as an import.
lee, this video i mentioned, the one called sass and brass. chuck is on there. the trps are chuck, don cherry, dizzy, al hirt and maynard. next to dizzy and maybe don cherry, chuck is the only one who is really playing bebop. he sounds good on there. i think he can really play but made his bread in the commercial market. i don't have anything of his except the sarah vaughan video.
i would say al hirt is slightly more musical...and has a different soloing style. he sound a little classical influenced in his jazz solos...like harry james.
i was just joking. I really don't care for either of them. I have a friend that looks exactly like Al Hirt and for his birthday I got him an album by Al Hirt as a joke because he hates him alot. My friend's name is Steve Fulton. Check him out he is a great trumpet player
