Disney shares new details on the music of Tiana's Bayou Adventure

Jun 01, 2023 in "Tiana's Bayou Adventure"

Posted: Thursday June 1, 2023 11:10am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Disney has announced today that Walt Disney Imagineering is collaborating with award-winning artists PJ Morton and Terence Blanchard on the music guests will hear as part of Tiana's Bayou Adventure.

Disney's Carmen Smith said, "Both natives of New Orleans, PJ and Terence will help score a lyrical love letter to the region that first inspired our endeavor with Princess Tiana. We’ll have more to share down the road as our teams make progress on a new original song composed by PJ Morton and new renditions of fan favorite music from the Walt Disney Animation Studios hit film, 'The Princess and the Frog.'"

PJ Morton is writing, arranging and producing the original song for the attraction. He is performing on and producing the sessions in New Orleans of all-new arrangements of the song, as well as songs from “The Princess and the Frog” within the attraction. 

Terence Blanchard is helming music arrangement for the attraction’s queue. Terence is working to select songs from “The Princess and the Frog,” as well as iconic themes from New Orleans.

The music will borrow from several musical styles that either originated or took up permanent residence in New Orleans. Some brand-new Audio-Animatronics figures will bring the invigorating sounds of New Orleans to life. Take this new rendering of Prince Naveen’s brother, Ralphie, for example. It’s a scene you commonly see in New Orleans: the joie de vivre influencing his every movement as he jams to the beat of his songful soul. Or this band of friendly critters playing joyful Zydeco-style music. Ralphie will be one of 17 new audio-animatronics in the attraction.

Tiana's Bayou Adventure attraction is coming to Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in late 2024.

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WorldExplorer1 hour ago

God, can we all just take a moment to appreciate the sheer impressiveness of Splash Mountain making an indoor scene set on a bright, sunny day in an outdoor area? I'm pretty sure it was the only ride that did that in all of Disney World (the screens on Three Caballeros is the only other example I can think of, and it feels pretty clashy with the real scenes). Maybe all Disney parks, I haven't seen another one in all the videos I've watched. It's easier to hide things and direct the eye when more things are dark, so you can see why normally they go with that. Then Tiana's comes along and really sets the tone for the whole retheme by going right back to night scenes.

Tony the Tigger1 hour ago

So you’re saying it’s bad because it’s too similar to the previous version, which was somehow good despite those similarities?

Tony the Tigger1 hour ago

You mean because his story ended when the movie ended, and this takes place after that?

EagleScout6102 hours ago

Once you turn the lights on, the half baked nature of the retheme really show through. Take Tiana in the first scene - Keep in mind, that set replaced Br'er Rabbit with Mr. Bluebird and the briars behind him with two trees and fake grass. Another example is the critter band 3 feet away where Br'er Fox and Bear were: God, I could write a book about how badly they messed this overhaul up.

Comped5 hours ago

Was never an option to include him when, I cannot lie, certain elements within Disney were afraid of offending voodoo practitioners with his inclusion.

Jedi146 hours ago

From what they had said about the show, it was to be set after TBA and partially about Tiana’s new role as a community leader and future queen.

LindseyDisney10 hours ago

I posted this on reddit and I thought I would share my thoughts on here. I'm curious what everyone thinks? This is just my own wild theory, but I’ve always thought the characters we’re seeing in Tiana's Bayou Adventure were originally meant to be introduced in the canceled Tiana series. Since that show was scrapped, I can’t help but wonder what the future holds for Tiana's Bayou Adventure. My guess is that in the next 10 to 15 years, Disney might end up tweaking the ride's storyline. While they’ll definitely keep the Princess and the Frog IP, I could see them changing the narrative. Or potential inclusion of Dr. Facilier. With the upcoming Villains Land in the parks, how can they not include him? I’m almost imagining a scenario like Journey into Imagination. where we end up with two different Princess and the Frog storylines / rides in the parks.

EagleScout61017 hours ago

Even as someone with a Splash poster 10 feet from my desk, and Br'er Bear and Rabbit funkos among the many on my desk, I get the annoyance, but it's pointless to rehash the Splash argument again. Splash is gone, and now we can just make fun of how bad Bayou is

HMF18 hours ago

For my own sanity I mostly avoided the Splash threads from 2020 until it opened and then rendered my opinion.

HMF23 hours ago

I remember thinking in the early 2010s Things at WDW probably could not get any worse, I was wrong about that.

WorldExplorer23 hours ago

And now we're supposed to do all of this all over again. I don't normally quote myself, but I feel like I really got the Piston Peak situation down pat a year ago;

Splash4eva23 hours ago

Exactly. We saw the same playbook with GMR. Sadly no matter what shape Splash was in and towards the end and even other times its was rough with many things not working but end of day the ride was still the best and a classic. One where you can sing from start to finish and have an absolute joyous time on.

Tha Realest23 hours ago

I’m old enough to remember one of the main justifications for this “reskin” was how poor a shape that Splash Mountain was in, the decrepit state of the AAs, and the need for constant maintenance. Glad those issues have completely gone away.

Dreamer191 day ago

This is the thing. It was not only needlessly destructive to Splash, but it was also only partially destructive. They half-assed it. If they were dedicated, they could have demolished what was there and started from scratch and built a REAL Tiana ride. I would have hated losing Splash, but at least they wouldn’t have used the corpse of Splash Mountain to gloat about the companies “values”. Furthermore, something tells me all those extra “research” trips to New Orleans could have covered the cost of the demo.