...and then the shark strikes.
John Williams wrote those notes for Jaws, but it was Tommy Johnson who made them come alive, the highlight of a half-century career playing on thousands of film scores, including The Godfather, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Titanic the Star Trek movies...
I'm thinking of a particular cue in Wrath of Khan — "Surprise Attack," the scene where Enterprise first encounters the Reliant, not knowing of its hijacking by Khan and his followers. The trumpet sounds the first notes, the tuba the next. I have a name to put to those notes now. Typically, too late.
Tommy Johnson died Oct. 16 of cancer and of kidney failure. He was 71.
The Los Angeles Times obituary includes a link to an mp3 file of Johnson's most famous work, possibly the most famous two notes in movie history.
