By Seamus Fitzpatrick
Mac Gollehon has built a career out of contradiction as a horn player who moves between pop, salsa, and experimental noise. Each of his personalities always sounds with an unmistakable style. On Pistoleros, the contradictions become the point. This is a session built to capture performance in real time with its layered construct, a study in how acoustic brass and electronic instruments can merge into a thrilling cross-genre album.
Gollehon’s horn vocabulary is immense, and he plays trumpet in a manner that each phrase is a production element, plus a hip line. On Pistoleros, he surrounds his horn with an intricate ecosystem of percussion by Anthony Carrillo and Elvis Ferrara, rhythmic and harmonic scaffolding by Greg Meisenberg, and textural sounds sculpted by David Brenner of Gridfailure. The result is a progressive world music space, with Gollehon’s musical vocabulary as the connecting element.
“Pistoleros” sets the sonic thesis. The groove is rooted in Latin jazz with rock and dance elements. Gollehon & The Hispanic Mechanics provide a feel with a polyrhythmic snap. A space where the sound surface is fully balanced with electronic and acoustic sounds. Ascending synths act as harmonic propulsion, building momentum until the horn bursts in. Gollehon’s sound, wet with reverb and delay, acoustics that embrace the electronics. Each section adds density and rhythmic voltage until each part becomes a part of the circuitry.
“Stud Poker” has an Afro-Cuban feel, opening the track. Gollehon and co-producer David Maurice balance rhythmic layering with controlled balance as the acoustic instruments blend into the electronic ones, with no instrument overpowering another. “Sign It,” co-written with Maurice, expands on this design principle. The track’s electronic meets progressive rock foundation is ornamented with Gollehon’s style. Brenner’s sound effects act as a bridge between acoustic and synthetic. Against this environment, Gollehon’s phrasing takes on a different contour. He plays like a modulator, using breath and valve pressure to bend frequencies to deliver interesting lines. This balance of acoustic intent and electronic transformation is Pistoleros’s central innovation.
The fusion of styles on this album all treat brass as melodic color, as Gollehon’s compositions create the perfect structure. On “Mac Attack,” his trumpet and keyboards exchange. The groove builds in layers with a danceable progressive jazz character. Gollehon’s use of effects is instructive for exploring the emotions within the textures. The ensemble does an excellent job in supporting the composition’s growth and extending the harmonic logic of the form.
On “Killer Joe ‘Zillionario’,” the percussionists reshape the groove into a syncopated dialogue of progressive rock, Latin jazz, and fusion. What is very enjoyable is how the rhythm functions as a counterpoint. Each conga slap and bell accent interacts with Meisenberg’s bass phrasing and Gollehon’s melodies and textures. “Stacked Deck” demonstrates how to integrate acoustic brass into an electronic framework without losing expression.
What Pistoleros achieves is a stylistic fusion of melody and rhythm. Pistoleros offers a 21st-century ensemble design. The players function as producers, and the producers function as composers. Each sonic layer has a purpose of rhythmic, harmonic, or spatial. Gollehon’s use of multi-instrumental layering (trumpet, trombone, tuba, keys, guitar) shows he underscores a broader truth. Progressive world jazz lies in sonic systems of how sound is organized, processed, and performed within time and space. That’s the short of it!
