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Plas Johnson, the jazz saxophonist best known for his ageless solo on the theme to “The Pink Panther,” has died. He was 94.
Johnson’s death in Granada Hills was reported in his Louisiana hometown newspaper, the Donaldsonville Chief. No cause of death was provided.
According to Long Beach jazz station KKJZ, which also memorialized Johnson’s death, Johnson learned saxophone from his father and attended Westlake School of Music in Los Angeles after his Army service in 1951. After moving to Los Angeles, he became a favorite live and session player for many midcentury greats, including Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Marvin Gaye.
“You don’t improve your jazz in the studio. You’re in the studio because of the jazz and blues that you know,” Johnson said in one interview. “My solos always seemed to bring the record up another notch. I could do that in eight bars, I could do that in 12 bars, and I used to maybe do fills behind the vocalist after that.”
His nimble, stylish solo on Henry Mancini’s 1963 theme to the police-caper comedy “The Pink Panther” became cultural shorthand for an era of sly jazz panache. It won three Grammy awards and an Oscar nomination for original score. The American Film Institute put it in the top 20 of the all-time greatest film scores.
Born in Louisiana, Johnson was a regular in Mancini’s orchestra in the ‘50s and ‘60s. He began playing in Merv Griffin’s studio band in 1970, appeared in the 2008 documentary “The Wrecking Crew,” discussing the vibrant and ambitious era of L.A. session musicians in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
Information about survivors was not immediately available.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
