I first heard news of the death of tenor saxophonist Plas Johnson (left) a couple of days ago, and since then there have been numerous tributes including this one in the Irish Times. Almost without fail the obituaries introduce him as the man who played the saxophone part of the Pink Panther theme written by Henry Mancini. In fact, years ago, I won a tiebreak for my team in a pub quiz by knowing the name of the person who played that tune.
Even very good musicians struggled to make a decent living from jazz after the arrival of rock-and-roll as a popular musical phenomenon in the 1950s. Like many jazz performers, Johnson addressed this issue by moving to Los Angeles, where he found work as a session musician working to support such artists as Frank Sinatra and Marvin Gaye, or on film and TV music. Henry Mancini noticed Plas Johnson’s quality and it inspired him to write the Pink Panther film specifically for him. Most of these performances went uncredited, which is why his name isn’t more widely known despite him being a very fine saxophonist. Nonetheless, having the financial security of being much sought after session musician, Plas Johnson was able to continue to pursue his love of jazz. He made some fine albums as leader (I have Positively on vinyl). He also moonlighted as Johnny Beecher to evade contractual issues.
The reason I knew of Plas Johnson as a jazz musician before I found out he was the Pink Panther guy. That’s because I used to listen to Humphrey Lyttelton’s radio programme The Best of Jazz on Radio 2 on Monday evenings from 9pm when I was at school and Plas Johnson came up a few times, including on the track I’ve included below from one of the famous Hanna-Fontana sessions at the Concord Jazz Festival. The recording was made in 1975 but the record wasn’t available in the UK until a couple of years later. I used to tape Humph’s radio shows but no longer have any of the cassettes so I had to spend much of my spare time the last couple of days trying to find the track Humph played. This is it! It features Plas Johnson (ts), clearly enjoying himself in the company of Bill Berry (tpt), Carl Fontana (tb), Herb Ellis (g), Dave McKenna (p), Herb Mickman (b) and Jake Hanna (d). Not a bad line-up!
R.I.P. Plas Johnson (1931-2026), so much more than the Pink Panther guy!
In the Dark 