Guest post by Nathan Arizona
Solos by even the most famous jazz musicians rarely get a huge national audience with music that becomes part of America’s aural landscape. But that happened for Plas Johnson, who died last month at 94, though hardly anybody knows the saxophone solo was his.
It was Johnson who played Henry Mancini’s iconic theme song for the 1963 movie “The Pink Panther.” You know, this one, played here by Johnson in a jazz setting.
Even people who came to his club performances didn’t always realize who they were seeing. He once said that sometimes after playing the “Pink Panther” theme people would tell him that “I sound like the original version. … They never know who it was that did it.”
Johnson was a regular in Henry Mancini’s studio orchestra. Mancini’s soundtracks and other jazzy/easy listening recordings were very popular in the U.S. during the second half of the 20th century and are to some extent even today. That was Johnson on “Moon River,” on “Days of Wine and Roses,” on “Dreamsville.”
Even aficionados who know him mainly for his jazz recordings have heard more of Plas Johnson than they might realize. As a session musician he played on the theme songs for “Mannix,” “The Odd Couple,” “The Monkees” and other TV shows. He played on the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” album, Steely Dan’s “Pretzel Logic” and Boz Scaggs’ “Silk Degrees.” He also backed Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole and other jazz singers.
Johnson did much of his ’60s and ’70s session work for Mancini and others as part of L.A.’s Wrecking Crew, a group of more or less anonymous studio musicians that has become widely known and respected over the years. Johnson was elite even in that elite bunch.
He once told a reporter that in the studio after the “Pink Panther” recording “everyone applauded, even the string players. And that’s saying something. They never applaud for anything.”
Here’s the song playing over the opening credits of “The Pink Panther” film.
This is the theme for the TV series “Peter Gunn.” Some nice noir images here. Pete Candoli joins Johnson and the others on trumpet. Candoli was an important figure in the West Coast “cool” jazz scene. “The Music From Peter Gunn” was named best album at the first ever Grammy Awards in 1959
