Plas Johnson, the tenor saxophonist whose prowling sound carried Henry Mancini's Pink Panther theme, died July 15 at 94 after a career built on the studio musician's difficult art of arriving prepared to play whatever a session required. [1]

The Guardian obituary reports that Johnson was the only Black musician among 20 players at the 1963 session, less than a decade after Los Angeles musicians' union branches divided by race had merged, placing a familiar melody inside a history of access and labor.

His range extended across saxophones, flute, clarinet, piccolo, pop hits, film and television scores, jazz records, and work with singers from Frank Sinatra to Ella Fitzgerald, though much session labor could be uncredited and later Pink Panther recordings used another player.

Reliable studio work and a long television-band engagement paid well but delayed Johnson's public standing as a jazz musician, a tradeoff that nostalgia for one theme can conceal alongside contracts, pseudonymous releases, credits, ownership, and royalties.

One obituary can restore a worker to the sound millions recognize without becoming a complete civil death record, union history, session log, discography, payment audit, or survivor account, so Johnson's documented versatility should be honored without assigning performances, influence, compensation, or rights that the source does not establish.

-- KATYA VOLKOV, Moscow