Chuck Mangione - Chase The Clouds Away (1975)

Mangione's first release on the A&M record label finds him safely treading water in his favorite pool: Latin-tinged instrumental pop/smooth jazz. Reedist Gerry Niewood brings his A game to the cuts on this album and brings some quality solos to some otherwise bland and/or over-orchestrated compositions. Maybe using the word "bland" is a bit much - the music here is perfectly agreeable, but there's only a couple of tracks that really grab my ear. As my dear friend Richard used to say, "good, not great."

The liner notes (written by Mangione himself) state the album was recorded live to tape so there are an above-average number of clams from Mangione, but that's the nature of the beast. As a recovering trumpet player myself, I can recall participating in my fair share of clambakes.

The title track was nominated for two Grammy Awards:

1. Best Instrumental Composition (eventually losing to Images by Michel Legrand)
2. Best Pop Instrumental Performance (eventually losing to The Hustle by Van McCoy)

It also gained exposure when it was used by ABC during its coverage of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.

How big was Mangione in pop culture back then? Well, he was popular enough to not only have chart success with instrumental singles, he also appeared on TV in such classics as Playboy's Roller Disco & Pajama Party in 1979. And here's a clip with Chuck providing his own background music while onscreen with Tom Selleck in an episode of Magnum PI:

Starting in 1997 he was a recurring character on the animated show King Of The Hill. I noticed that Mangione's discography on Wikipedia is rather lacking, so I'm going to go ahead and spin this CD again while I start up a rudimentary singles history for the man. As my father used to bemoan, "I guess I gotta do everything myself."

Title	Year	Hot 100	AC	R&B
Hill Where The Lord Hides	1971	76	32
Chase The Clouds Away	1975	96
Bellavia	1976		49
Land Of Make Believe	1977	86
Feels So Good	1978	4	1
Children of Sanchez	1978		44
Bellavia (from Children of Sanchez album)	1979		41
Land Of Make Believe (Live)	1979		44
Give It All You Got	1980	18	1	32
Fun And Games	1980		49
Steppin' Out	1982			80

Plus, I respect Mangione's deep commitment to brown felt fedoras with a flat crown and colorful hatband.

Reviews/ratings:

• High Fidelity: "Altogether, a thoroughly enjoyable album."
• Stereo Review: "full of good music of the middle-of-the-road jazz variety"
• Billboard: "The music is very easy to appreciate."
• Record World: "Mangione's ability to lushly weave sounds to form special moods is at its height"
• The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #47
• Billboard Jazz: #6
• CashBox: #88
• CashBox Jazz: #33
• Record World Jazz: #5

Tracks: The title track is the cream of the crop and the only tune I had heard prior to finding this CD in a used bin. The first two tracks are also quite nice. The album ends with a lone vocal track, Soft, which is a nice ballad, but seems out of place here.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None with this particular album, but Mangione's death on July 22, 2025 certainly put me in a melancholy mood. His music has definitely played a role in my life since I first heard Feels So Good on my AM radio. My Feels So Good cassette was the first jazz album I ever purchased. The 1979 live album, An Evening of Magic: Live at the Hollywood Bowl, provided background music for me for decades as I tackled writing assignments in undergraduate and graduate schools (and possibly high school?). My very first year of teaching marching band in 1989, the main director of the high school band chose an arrangement of Mangione's Land Of Make Believe for the band to perform. That scenario repeated itself at a different school with different colleagues and different students in the late '90s. And, around 2002 or 2003, yet another band I taught worked up an all-Mangione halftime show, which not only included Land Of Make Believe, but also El Gato Triste and one other Mangione tune I can't recall.

And why hasn't the 1981 A&M album Tarantella ever been released on CD? 2008 Universal Studios fire maybe?

Previously revisited for the blog:
Everything For Love (2000)
Eyes Of The Veiled Temptress (1988)
Classics, Volume 6 (1987)
Journey To A Rainbow (1983)
Love Notes (1982)/Disguise (1984)/Save Tonight For Me (1986)
An Evening of Magic: Live at The Hollywood Bowl (1979)
Feels So Good (1977)
Land Of Make Believe (1973)