Say what you want about Chuck Mangione. Soft jazz, elevator music, no substance, blah blah blah…I’ve heard it all. If you say such things then you have clearly never heard the best live album EVER recorded….”Chuck Mangione Live at the Hollywood Bowl” recorded in July 1978.

The concert starts while the audience is still mumbling and chatting about who knows what. The man in the hat himself walks on stage alone and simply starts playing with no introduction. Seven simple notes start things off…B C D…..A G F# G. The familiar opening notes to “Feels So Good” start off 101 minutes of musical gold. This introduction brings about the entrance of his quartet, James Bradley, Jr. on drums, Charles Meeks on bass, Grant Geissman on guitars, and Chris Vadala on everything (everything meaning soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxes, flute (C and alto), and any other woodwind instrument littering the stage). This quartet with CM as the front man was already famous and the audience would have likely been pleased with this arrangement. But no, this is the Hollywood Bowl we are talking about hear so we need more musicians. A basic big band backs up the quartet and a full freaking orchestra backs up everybody.

Reading the liner notes you are quick to discover that this entire evening of music was pulled off without very little rehearsal time. One song, “Children of Sanchez” was first played by the musicians LIVE during the concert. Talk about walking a technical in fact. As you listen to this album, and yes, you should by all means listen to this album, you will get the sense that the entire concert was a tightrope that came off at a spectacular level. Virtuosity does not even begin to describe what was happening on that stage that hot July evening. Each and every musician was locked in as if they were on rails. Absolute musical perfection.

Listen to the album straight through without stopping and then tell me in all honesty if you can honestly describe the music of Chuck Mangione as “soft” or as “elevator music” ever again without embarrassing yourself and your children.