Art & Creativity Quote by Chuck Mangione

Mangione is doing something more strategic than sounding open-minded: he is defending access. In a music economy where genre functions like a bouncer, “labels or categories” aren’t neutral descriptors; they’re sorting mechanisms that decide who shows up, who gets booked, and who gets dismissed before a single note lands. His phrasing is tellingly practical: “people come with preconceived ideas,” “won’t come.” This isn’t a high-minded manifesto against classification so much as a working musician’s diagnosis of audience behavior.

The subtext is a quiet rebuke of how jazz and jazz-adjacent artists get boxed in. Mangione’s career sat in that friction point between jazz credibility, pop crossover, and the radio-friendly sheen of what later got tagged “smooth jazz.” Those tags can grant reach, but they also trigger reflexive sneers or rigid expectations: purists anticipating complexity may hear polish and feel betrayed; casual listeners fearing “difficult” music may stay home. Either way, the label preloads the listening experience, turning the concert into a test of whether the music matches the marketing.

What makes the quote work is its modesty. Mangione doesn’t claim genres are fake; he argues they’re socially consequential. He wants the first encounter to be sensory, not ideological: walk in curious, not armed with a verdict. In that sense, it’s less about aesthetics than hospitality - an appeal to let the music arrive before the category does.