The Jinx: Robert Durst is Back
In early 2024, I received an unexpected email from a music supervisor asking me if I was interested in producing an album featuring the music for the multiple Emmy Award-winning HBO true crime hit “The Jinx.” Of course, I jumped at the chance since I had been a long-time fan of the show since it first aired.
It was an absolute pleasure and honour to work with director Andrew Jarecki and his team, including composers West Dylan Thordson and Mondo Boys on a physical and digital release of the soundtrack for “The Jinx.”
Jarecki's HBO hit gave us a unique insight into the world of the Rich and Famous. It is a bizarre, warped, and twisted world in which the wealthy heir of a real estate tycoon disguises himself as a mute woman and mingles with the ‘down and out’ in Texas, one of whom he commences to dismember and dispose of after he has become a nuisance. This is Robert Durst’s story, the billionaire whose first wife, Kathleen McCormack, suddenly vanished; who dismembered pensioner Morris Black, and subsequently killed his best friend, Susan Berman, after she threatened to spill the beans on McCormack’s disappearance.
Jarecki had been familiar with Durst’s story before he embarked on the project that would eventually become “The Jinx.” In 2010, he directed the feature film “All Good Things,” a fictionalized account of the tumultuous marriage between Durst and McCormack. (The soundtrack was released by Caldera Records in 2014.)
The show’s mood was unique, and the score needed to be unique. Jarecki hired composer West Dylan Thordson for the first season. His music for “The Jinx” is a darkly hypnotic score, suspense writing at its best. Skillfully, Thordson plays with key motifs and themes which he weaves in and out to combine them with new material and present them in a different instrumentation. While he aptly captures the darkness in Robert Durst, there is also a moving gentleness in those cues dedicated to his missing wife. His pensive and melancholic cue “Kathie” stands out as a moving tribute to the young student who was full of hope and adored by everybody.
The music for the recent second season of “The Jinx” was composed by Mondo Boys: Mike Schanzlin and Mike Griffin. They knew that what made the first season so impressive was its tonal ambiguity: the audience oftentimes never sure whether what they saw was hilarious or repulsive. Nailing the tone for Robert Durst and his unwitting accomplices was a balancing act. Jarecki and his team allowed them to experiment with themes, moods, and instrumentation. The show proved a rewarding playground for the musicians, a dream come true after they had been fervent fans of the show’s first season.
The same is true for us at Caldera Records: We were fans of “The Jinx” long before we were asked if we were interested in releasing the album for the instrumental score. Considering we had released Rob Simonsen’s “All Good Things” score, we had come full circle.
You can get more information and listen to some sound clips on our Caldera homepage: