Music of Grim Fandango

"One special occasion was our hijacking Tim [Schafer] and leading him to the recording studio where a bunch of us improvised on bongos, tin whistles and shakers while he talked through the story and its meaning, like a beatnik poetry reading."

"Frustrated with the state of music in games at the time, two composers at LucasArts Peter MccConnell and Michal Land created one of the first adaptive music systems, called iMuse. iMuse (Interactive MUsic Streaming Engine) let composers insert branch and loop markers into a sequence that would allow the music to change based on the decisions of the player. The iMuse engine was one [of] the first significant contributions to interactive music for video games. Its importance in shaping many of the techniques that you see in video games today cannot be overemphasized. (...) Other excellent iMuse titles includes Grim Fandango (1998), which features an indescribable jazz-based soundtrack composed by Peter McConnell."

"This meant focused attention to mixing, EQ'ing, and programming articulation data on an individual instrument basis to bring each phrase and gesture in line with Pete's original intentions. It meant a constant back and forth with the original music and imagining, 'What should this sound like today?'."

"For us to do this right, we had to also wrap our minds around the 'extra-musical' content of the music – the concepts, the references, the puns – the ideas that interact like characters in a play."

"The music is also being redone by Peter McConnell, the composer of the original soundtrack. Though Grim Fandango featured a lot of live swing music, but the game's less-famous orchestral score was synthesized. For the remaster, that will be changing: "We never really conceived of the possibility that the orchestral tracks might be done by a live orchestra", McConnell said. "But I'm happy to say that we're going to be able to do a lot of those tracks with a live orchestra"."

"Very early on in the process Tim handed me black and white concept art of the characters, his collection of Bogie movies, and some vinyl records of a particular kind of Mexican folk music called Son. It was very raw, using crude folk instruments: violins, charangos and hand percussion. I listened to that and watched the Bogie movies over and over, and even got copies of scores from Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Casablanca from the Warner archives. I had also been a fan of Duke Ellington since college, and he was a huge influence. I had a head shot of him in what looked like his early twenties above my computer screen in my office studio at LucasArts. Beyond the listening material, Tim didn’t give a lot of direction. In my experience, Tim leads more by inspiring than by directing. For the Re-mastered version he had very little input at all, except that he was very supportive of the effort to make the music the highest quality possible."

"I kept the score cohesive by building it on a backbone of classic Max Steiner-style orchestral underscoring. To internalize Steiner's sound, I studied full scores from sections of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Casablanca), and The Big Sleep. I watched those films about a hundred times, along with the Adolph Deutsch-scored film The Maltese Falcon. I read scores to several Debussy works (for the ocean music), listened to plenty of Duke Ellington, and made trips to San Francisco clubs for swing homework."

"In terms of the live music that’s in the score, the entire score comes from the Mission [district in San Francisco] and every musician who played on that score either lived in the Mission — like the Peruvian flute player — or played there regularly, like the mariachi bands and the jazz players. It was literally a score that was created by the Mission late at night."

"Be clear about what you want as a producer and to discern what each musician can bring to the music. One player may be a phenomenal reader, for example; another may give you something amazing if you just provide a few melodic and stylistic guidelines and cut him or her loose. On Grim Fandango, I soon learned that with music based so heavily on swing jazz, getting the best results often meant not being too attached to the written score-no matter how good I thought my original ideas were."

"Grim came at the perfect time: the swing revival was taking off in those days with bands like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Squirrel Nut Zippers, and the Day of the Dead was just entering pop culture. In the Mission District in San Francisco, you could go to a club like Bruno’s and hear hot new swing bands like The Red Hot Skillet Lickers mix original sounds with old standards, then duck around the corner to a taqueria and hear a mariachi band play, and on the Day of the Dead there would be a huge parade at night. Almost every musician in the original Grim Fandango score, from the brass to the mariachi players to the Peruvian flutist, played in or came from the Mission District."

"What I found with Grim, is that more than any other project that I've worked on, it's the most like an opera, so that the music is so integrated into the story, it's so present in the story and it is so much a part of the shape and direction of the story – I think the way to experience is to just sit down, you know, if you possibly can start to finish, just listen to it, and it is like reading the book as opposed to seeing the movie, you're experiencing the whole story of the game in your imagination"

"One of the great blessings of being able to re-visit Grim was to be able to fix a few things that had bugged me, the occasional klunker, or ham-fisted move. But those fixes were pretty rare. The pleasant surprise in the process was how well much of the original material held up."

"I can't say enough about how great MSO (Melbourne Symphony Orchestra) is to work with. The level of musicianship and focus and care for the music is simply outstanding. And I think we work very well together as a team. Going back to my early days at LucasArts I can say that there is nothing so valuable has having a great team."

"The one element that we didn't get so perfectly [in the 1998 original release] was the orchestral element — more of the film noir orchestral score. That’s what we were really able to do in a big way with Grim Remastered.(...) So between the remixes and the [live] symphony it turned out to be the score the way it was always meant to be heard."

"I have to say I'm glad I took extra care on the themes because I feel they were really able to blossom in the new live recordings."

"Described by McConnell as a score that had been "re-arranged, re-voiced, re-orchestrated, re-recorded, re-mixed, re-mastered and – most of all – retrieved"."

"My colleague Jory Prum (...) is kind of a tech genius [who worked on recovering the old data]. (...) I’m sitting there biting my nails because we were relying so heavily on that data to really be able to do anything significant with the score. Otherwise we would have just had to remaster the stereo files which would have been a minor tweak at best."

"LucasArts has put together a film class soundtrack that uses a blend of simple jazz and classical Mexican themes to add depth to the atmosphere of an already fantastic title. Not only is the soundtrack not annoying, but once again it is used to reinforce the emotions delivered in various sequences of the game. [It is a] beautiful soundtrack that you'll find yourself listening to even after you're done with the game"."

"The compositions and performances are so good that listening to this album on a stand-alone basis can make people feel like they're in a bar back then"."

"The pieces are beautifully composed, wonderfully played (...). has a stellar soundtrack with music that easily stands alone outside the context of the game. This CD was an absolute pleasure to listen to and comes highly recommended."

"Grim Fandango has one of the best, most thematic (Swing-Era Bebop and Jazz, Mexican folk, and others), and most memorable soundtracks ever to grace the inside of a cranial cavity where an ear drum used to be."

"[20 years after its original release] the soundtrack continues to be consistently praised for how composer Peter McConnell seamlessly blends Mexicana, jazz, and a Casablanca-inspired orchestral performance. The orchestra in the soundtrack was originally fully digital, due to the technological limitations on gaming audio at the time. It was still considered a stellar album to listen to, even without the context of the game, which speaks to the composer's tremendous skill and musicality. As with many games that are considered classics of the medium, Grim Fandango was remastered and rereleased in 2015. With limited technology no longer a barrier, McConnell took the opportunity to bring live performance to the orchestral elements of the soundtrack, collaborating with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and breathing a new spirit into a beloved classic."

"Though they may be few and far between, there are a handful of games that have used jazz to great advantage. Games like Earthbound, L.A. Noire, and No One Lives Forever. But among even the swingin'est of them, one soundtrack stands apart: Grim Fandango.(...) L.A. Noire 's soundtrack doesn't come close to the variety and vivaciousness of McConnell's Grim Fandango score. From the dark, plunger-muted swing of 'Swanky Maximo' to the mellow, guitar-accompanied lobby-trombone of the appropriately named 'Frustration Man', it's simply good, video game-related or no. And man, don't get me started on the epic saxophone of 'She Sailed Away', the chord-less free jazz of 'Blue Casket Bop' or the menacing bari sax/bass clarinet duet of 'Rubacava'… Okay, pretty much the whole thing."

"The blending of cultures in Grim Fandango is best exemplified by the game's original soundtrack, which blends the jazz and swing music of the film noir era with more traditional South American strings as well as an orchestral score. Composed by LucasArts’ own Peter McConnell, Grim Fandango’s soundtrack is commonly celebrated as one of the best video game soundtracks of all time. Great adventure games such as Grim Fandango feature worlds so cohesive and rich with detail that they're transportive for the player, and McConnell's soundtrack is the glue that binds the game’s elements."

"So revered are the sounds of Grim Fandango, that a script reading/concert was held at this year's E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) to celebrate the game’s 20-year anniversary. Composer Peter McConnell played selections from the soundtrack and the original voice actors—with the added support of superfan Jack Black—took the stage to reprise their roles"

"Few soundtracks have ever felt more integral to the success of a video game than Peter McConnell's score to Grim Fandango. The game's blend of styles would never have held together so well if it weren't for McConnell's masterful ability to fuse Mexican folk music with Duke Ellington-era big band jazz and noir scores in the spirit of Adolph Deutsch."

"Sometimes bebop, sometimes melancholic, sweet or sensual, whether led by a saxophone, a trumpet or a guitar, jazz is the predominant style of the Grim Fandango soundtrack, all reminiscent of the snug atmosphere of casinos and bars between the two world wars."

"It also described "Lost Souls' Alliance" as evoking a general feel for Hispanic music: "the rhythm, the guitar chords, the flute ... We are transported to Mexico, with some long notes of electric guitar reminiscent of the Western [genre], [and] a small side of 'rockabilly ballad' that makes us travel instantly to this corner of the planet, and that period at the onset of the twentieth century"."

"Grim Fandango's "Día de Muertos-noir" works because every part of the equation is given respect and attention. It's an absurd combination, sure, but never a simple one, and often it's McConnell's score, influenced equally by Spanish folk music, big band jazz, and iconic noir soundtracks, which added that essential weight. He helped us laugh at the initial premise of Grim Reapers essentially being dull travel agents, but more so — from Lola's death to Manny's showdown with Domino to the entire Casablanca-inspired centerpiece — it made us really care about this world and these (literal) lost souls."

"One of the most important facets of the Grim experience, other than the glorious concept artwork, was the music. Seamlessly shifting from bossa nova to burlesque jazz, the Grim soundtrack is both highly unusual in videogames and perfectly suited to the game in question. Every track was composed or co-ordinated by Peter McConnell, Schafer's long-time musical collaborator, and is worth an extended play"

"The soundtrack in Grim Fandango is among the best I have heard in a game. It deserves a separate kudos of its own. Composed by Peter McConnell (who has also composed the soundtracks for The Curse of Monkey Island|The Curse of Monkey Island and Psychonauts), the music consists of mainly jazz, bebop, and blues, with various influences from traditional Russian, Celtic, Mexican, Spanish, and Indian strings culture. What makes the soundtrack so great is that there is a different track for almost every location, or if not, for each character in the game."

"Peter McConnell's accompanying soundtrack of "South American folk music, jazz, swing and big band" instantly became one of the greatest video game soundtracks of all time upon release and the remastered version goes one step further, with many of the songs now fully orchestrated by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra – Grim Fandango has never sounded better."

"A major contributor to Grim Fandango's place in the canon is the swinging jazz score by Peter McConnell. The tracks incorporate traditional noir-style arrangements with Mexican flourishes and even klezmer|klezmer."