Jazz Articles

Gap Mangione: Family Holidays

by Jack Bowers
November 21, 2004

If this album can be used as evidence, family holidays must have been a blast at the Mangione home in Rochester, NY. Clearly, multi-talented Gap Mangione and his paisanos are having a lot of fun on this engaging album while making beautiful music that embraces not only the Christmas holiday season but several others as well, including a few whose meaning may be clear only to Gap, his friends and family. Among the latter is Leroy Anderson's enchanting “Serenata," which ...

Gap Mangione: Stolen Moments

by Jack Bowers
February 3, 2004

There’s an expanse of jazz midway between smooth and straight-ahead, blending elements of both, and that’s roughly the territory that pianist Gap Mangione and his big band most often stake out on Stolen Moments. The playlist consists mainly of contemporary pop/rock themes, some of which lend themselves to big-band interpretations better than others. While Mangione’s ensemble does the best it can with them, the most rewarding tracks by far are those that were written with jazz in mind—Oliver Nelson’s “Stolen ...

Gap Mangione: Diana in the Autumn Wind

by Jack Bowers
July 25, 2003

Gap and Chuck Mangione roared out of Rochester, NY in 1960 with their exciting Riverside Records debut, The Jazz Brothers, and returned to the studio eight years later to produce Diana in the Autumn Wind under pianist Gap’s name, showcasing his trio on four tracks and a big band conducted by younger brother Chuck on the other eight.

The idea, Gap writes in his updated liner notes, was “to create an album of the music we were playing five nights ...