Oscar-winning composer Johnny Mandel, 94

Johnny Mandel, the Oscar-winning composer of The Shadow Of Your Smile and the theme song to Mash, has died. He was 94.

Figures from the world of music paid tribute to a man described as one of the finest composers and arrangers of the 20th Century.

Singer Michael Buble said: “I was so sad to learn that a hero of mine, Johnny Mandel, passed away.

“He was a genius and one of my favourite writers, arrangers, and personalities.”

Michael Feinstein, the pianist and singer known as the “ambassador of the Great American Songbook”, also paid tribute. “The world will never be quite the same without his humour, wit and wry view of life and the human condition,” he wrote on Facebook.

“He was truly beyond compare, and nobody could write or arrange the way he did.” Born in New York in 1925, Mandel’s mother was an opera singer who noticed her son had perfect pitch when he was just five years old.

After taking piano lessons, he fell in love with jazz aged 12 and switched to brass instruments. He studied at the Manhattan School of Music and Juilliard School and made his living in the 1940s as a trombonist and trumpeter, playing with the big bands of Joe Venuti, Jimmy Dorsey, Buddy Rich and Chubby Jackson, among others.

At the same, he was writing and arranging music for radio and the new medium of TV and, after a stint with Count Basie’s band, decided to pursue a full-time career off the stage.

Moving to Los Angeles, he wrote orchestral arrangements for vocalists including Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Peggy Lee and Anita O’Day.

Mandel’s movie career also included music for the Susan Hayward film I Want To Live – considered to be the first time jazz had been integrated successfully into a musical score – and The Americanization Of Emily.

In 1970, director Robert Altman commissioned Mandel to create “the stupidest song ever written” for his upcoming film Mash.

The melody, which was written to fit lyrics by Altman’s 15-year-old son, was originally intended for the movie’s pivotal Last Supper scene, but Altman found the music so affecting that he used it over the opening titles.

Mandel objected and tried to insist that the song was removed. However, the film studio ignored his request and the track went on to become a worldwide chart hit.

Over the course of his career, Mandel won five Grammys and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010.

Picture: Shutterstock. Mr Mandel.