Chuck Mangione is a flugelhorn player who started out as a jazz bop player and ended up having one of the most recognizable jazz pop singles of all time. He had almost decades of playing & recording under his belt when he made the Feels So Good LP in 1977 with the title track hitting the Top 5 in the Spring of 1978. The LP version ran three times as long as the 45 – Chuck must have felt really good.
When the opening guitar strums and ride cymbals begin, I know to lay back and chill. And by the time Chuck starts his familiar melody, I know have 3+ minutes of funky bliss coming to me. I’m sure Wynton Marsalis and other jazz purists would wipe this song with their butt, but I don’t care. Good music is good music and this is a well crafted, well-performed and produced song. And if I hum the melody around my wife, she’ll have it in her head the rest of the day. That’s gotta mean something. I mean listen to that solo by “General” Grant Geissman. He tears it up. That’s my favorite part of the song.
Side note: A friend of mine took piano lessons from sax player Chris Vadala’s wife back in the 70s and had a major crush on her. That’s what he thinks about when he hears this song.
7 Inches of 70s Pop 
Barely Awake In Frog Pajamas
/ August 23, 2011The only two songs I know by Chuck Mangione are Feel’s So Good and Give It All You Got. The day’s always better when one of them shuffles up on the iPod.
macsnafu
/ December 3, 2014This is the song that made me want to keep playing trumpet when I was thinking of giving up the school band. I was in junior high at the time.