AILSA CHANG, HOST:
If you are like most people, you probably will recognize these notes.
(SOUNDBITE OF HENRY MANCINI'S "THE PINK PANTHER THEME")
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
That's right. It's the Henry Mancini theme song from the "Pink Panther" movie. Plas Johnson, the saxophonist who played the iconic riff, died last week, just shy of his 95th birthday.
CHANG: Now, you may not have known his name, but you probably knew a lot more of his music than you realized.
(SOUNDBITE OF HENRY MANCINI'S "THE PINK PANTHER THEME")
MICHAEL MCKEAN: You look at this guy's credits, and he played with everybody.
CHANG: That's actor and comedian Michael McKean, who got to know Johnson later on in his career.
MCKEAN: We realized this guy played the saxophone for all of our teen years. He was the guy we were hearing.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SUMMERS: Working as a studio musician in Los Angeles, Johnson played woodwinds on hits by Frank Sinatra, B.B. King, Marvin Gaye and The Beach Boys. He became known for a bold, swinging sound rooted in the music of his hometown of Donaldsonville, Louisiana, west of New Orleans.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PLAS JOHNSON: My father played banjo in the early days and saxophone later. My mother, she was a entertainer, played piano and sang.
CHANG: That's Johnson in a 1996 interview with the Fillius Jazz Archive at Hamilton College. He found his way to music at only 4 years old, singing harmonies with his siblings before picking up the saxophone. After serving in the Army, he moved to Los Angeles, where he became one of the busiest session musicians in the country.
DENNY TEDESCO: Watching Plas play live was amazing because you always think of these guys as just studio players.
SUMMERS: That's film producer Denny Tedesco. He directed a documentary about Johnson and his fellow LA studio musicians in 2008.
TEDESCO: But I would go hear him in the jazz clubs, and he was such a great soloist. I mean, some of his albums that are unfortunately underrated because no one would hear these guys. You know, they had their own solo careers, but they were so busy in the studios they were overlooked as jazz artists themselves.
SUMMERS: Tedesco says Johnson's legacy lives on through the generations of musicians he inspired.
TEDESCO: What's amazing now is players of today might not know they're being influenced by Plas because the guys that Plas influenced influenced the next generation.
CHANG: Plas Johnson was 94 years old. He is survived by his seven children, eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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