"It's me," Chuck Mangione said this week. "The man with the horn, and the hat, is headed for St. Thomas."
The popular trumpeter returns to St. Thomas on Oct. 7 to perform at the Reichhold Center for the Arts, and is looking forward to it.
"It's been too long," he said. "I vacationed there and played St. Thomas a few times. It's everything anyone could possibly want—beautiful scenery, beautiful weather and beautiful people."
Mangione has been performing for 50 years and his new CD, "Everything for Love," is being released at the end of September.
Mangione said he was blessed to have been born in the 1940s when he could see the legendary big bands perform live. Bebop pioneer Dizzy Gillespie is one of his heroes. "Dizzy was a brilliant trumpet player, composer and arranger," he said. "He always let the audience know he enjoyed what he was doing and always introduced the members of his band."
At the age of ten, Chuck took a music aptitude test in school and scored very well. When asked to pick an instrument he chose the trumpet because he had just seen the movie "Young Man With A Horn." He entered amateur hour contests, visited veterans's hospitals and played at weddings and bar mitzvahs, eventually turning to the larger flugelhorn, with its big, mellow sound. "I was hooked," he said.
It was his father who introduced both Mangione and his brother, Gap Mangione, to music. When Gillespie was performing in Rochester, N.Y., they went to matinee performances. "My father introduced us to Dizzy and told him his sons were good jazz performers," he said. "Dizzy invited Gap and me to play, and then Papa invited Dizzy to our home for dinner. I grew up thinking every kid had Dizzy Gillespie or Sarah Vaughan over to the house for spaghetti and homemade wine."
Mangione said his father encouraged him. "Papa always traveled with the band, selling records, T-shirts and booklets. More people knew Papa than knew me," he said. His father is now 90 years old and too frail to travel, but his fans still ask for him.
His brother went on the teach at Syracuse University and Mangione to wide acclaim, beginning in the 1970s. But in 1989, after two new albums were released, Mangione said he needed time to himself.
"I didn't do much," he said. "Just fishing, reading paperbacks and didn't even listen to music."
The one good thing that happened to him that year was meeting and marrying his wife, Rosemarie, the inspiration behind the passionate "Slo Ro" cut on his latest CD. He won a Grammy award for "Bellavia," song he wrote for his mother for Mother's Day.
"I ran out of ideas for a gift so I wrote her a song," he said. Bellavia is his mother's maiden name.
Mangione was also nominated for a Grammy for the soundtrack to "Children of Sanchez." He will perform on Saturday, Oct. 7, at the Reichhold Center on the UVI St. Thomas campus.
For ticket information, call 693-1559, or you can buy tickets online at www.reichholdcenter.com