Electro-Sonic Painting

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Paint With Music and Electro-Sonic Painting  

Marcus Brown literally paints or draws with his self-created sound producing art-instruments while singing hip-hop / rock vocals on top of a dark electronic-hop backdrop. For over a decade Brown has been making sound producing painting instruments and using them to create works of visual and musical art in a process he developed called Electro-Sonic Painting.

Paint With Music | Marcus Brown is a music project that focuses on bringing Brown's sound painting to live audiences and to collaborate with other musicians in the process of making his art. New Orleans having a large supply of highly talented Musicians made Brown's home a perfect home base. 

The Process of Electro-Sonic Painting 

Electro-Sonic Painting is an electronic musical form of painting or mark making created by Marcus Brown.  This process is performed with specialized sound producing paint brushes, canvases, surfaces and/or tools to create a work of art. 

Electro-Sonic Painting- e-lec-tro-son-ic painting

1. The process of intertwining painting and electronic sound in the creation of a work of art and a soundscape.

2.An electronic musical form of painting or mark making. This process is performed with an amplified brush or tool to create a fine work of art. A musical brush is a brush with a sensitive microphone, synthesizer, MIDI trigger used to amplify the application of the paint or mark making material. In many ways Electro Sonic Painting is like painting with a microphone. Electro-Sonic Painting or Electro-Sonic Making combines sonic, musical and visual processes.

History 

Electro-Sonic Painting process was born during Brown's evacuation and exodus from New Orleans during hurricane Katrina in 2005. While being held up in his FEMA hotel room and later apartment  Brown started creating hybrid microphone canvases and brushes to amplify his brush strokes and mark making. This came easy to brown because he was already creating microphones for amplifying human organs back in Kansas City and New Orleans in his other art projects. In the in the shuffle of evacuation Brown made sure to bring a hand full of his small electronic instruments/sculptures with him on his journey to meet his wife's family in Portland,Oregon. Once in Portland, Brown took up an artist residency at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) where he further developed his Electro-Sonic Painting process.  ln 2006, Brown showed and performed his Electro-Sonic Painting process in Los Angeles, Ca, Missoula,MT and later in Portland,Or. 
In 2007, Brown Returned to New Orleans and formed P.A.I.N.T. Performance Art Integrating New Technologies with his childhood friend, musician and technologist Nathan Weidenhaft. Brown and Weidenhaft develop more technologies, software, processes for this new process of art making. 
Brown shortly after formed a group called P.A.I.N.T. Performance Art Integrating New Technologies a group of artists to create public interactive art project. P.A.I.N.T. Performance Art Integrating New Technologies went on to do performances, educational workshops, installations museum and gallery exhibits throughout the New Orleans arts community. 
P.A.I.N.T. Performance Art Integrating New Technologies transformed into performance group/band called  Paint With Music. Brown found music venues to be a easier place to engage with the public with the process of Electro-Sonic Painting.

Paint With Music | Marcus Brown is a musical group that focuses on bringing Brown's sound painting to live audiences and to collaborate with other musicians in the process of making his art. New Orleans having a large supply of highly talented Musicians made Brown's home a perfect home base.

PAINT WITH MUSIC and P.A.I.N.T. Performance Art Integrating New Technologies group members

Marcus Brown creator and founder

​Marcus E. Brown, a native of New Orleans, is an international sculptor, painter, educator, inventor, musician and an avant-garde sound performance artist. Brown developed a form of painting called Electro-sonic Painting in which the artist paints with an amplified brush instrument used to simultaneously create a fine work of art as well as music. In demonstrating this new genre of music and art, Brown has collaborated with many talented and renowned musicians including Fred Thomas from James Brown’s JB’s, Nathan Weidenhaft , Snap( Sylvester Andrews), Eric Gold, Steve Masakowski, Sasha Masakowski , Doug Garrison, Bill Summers, Brian Seeger, Cliff Hines, Khari Allen Lee, Devin Phillips, Mark De Florio, Chuck Barber many more. In addition to his performance art, Brown has exhibited with artists such as Andy Warhol, Chris Burden, Hannah Wilke ,and many others around the world.  In 2008, Brown received an Art in Public Places commission featured in Prospect I by the Arts Council of New Orleans in collaboration with the Joan Mitchell Foundation for his piece Human Universal Musical Sculpture HUMS), a sound sculpture that interacts with an individual’s bioelectrical currents to produce a unique sound. Brown, is a graduate of the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts NOCCA), earned his BFA at the Kansas City Institute of Art (KCAI) in Kansas City, MO and a M.Ed. from Portland State University in Portland, OR. Brown currently practices art internationally and teaches at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) in New Orleans.

Khari Allen Lee

As one of New Orleans’ most-in-demand artists, saxophonist, educator, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Khari Allen Lee has performed and recorded with such luminaries as Alvin Batiste, Ellis Marsalis, Edward 'Kidd' Jordan, Aaron Neville, Aretha Franklin, Dr. John, Branford Marsalis, Allen Toussaint, DeeDee Bridgewater, Stevie Wonder, Terence Blanchard, the Treme Brass Band, Leah Chase, Herlin Riley, the Astral Project, Shannon Powell, Wes ‘Warmdaddy’ Anderson, Jason Marsalis, Nicholas Payton, Bill Summers, Jeff 'Tain' Watts, Ravi Coltrane, Kenny Barron & more. He is lead saxophonist & touring member of Delfeayo Marsalis' Uptown Jazz Orchestra, the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra directed by Adonis Rose, & a faculty member at the prestigious New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA).

As leader, Khari Allen Lee & the New Creative Collective have released three albums, Conscious Evolution (2012), Our Great Awakening (2014) & A New Earth (2016), all to enthusiastic praise. In 2015, he was chosen as newest artist endorser of the family of Jody Jazz Mouthpieces, & in 2017 was chosen as newest artist ambassador for the family of Rovner Ligatures.

He is featured on recordings with Grammy & Tony-winner DeeDee Bridgewater & The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra (DeeDee's Feathers, 2015), NEA Jazz Master Delfeayo Marsalis & the Uptown Jazz Orchestra (Make America Great Again!, 2016), New Orleans legend Dr. John (Ske-Dat-De-Dat, The Spirit of Satch, 2014), The Treme Brass Band (New Orleans Music, 2008), & recently released albums by Grammy-winning, octogenarian blues man, Bobby Rush, & multi Grammy-winning trumpeter & composer Terence Blanchard (The Comedian [Original Motion Picture Sountrack], 2017). 

As an educator, Lee has served on the faculty of Tulane University,as Director of Music at the International School Moshi, Tanzania, East Afrika at the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro, and as a clinician nationally and internationally. Lee currently serves as a faculty member in the Music Department at the prestigious New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA), as an adjunct faculty member at  Loyola University and the University of New Orleans, and as Woodwind Specialist & Director of the Grown Folks Lab Band with theMusicollaborative, a community based music education service organization.
He earned his Bachelors of Science in Music Education from Auburn University, attended the Berklee College of Music as a scholarship recipient, graduating with an Artist Diploma in Professional Music, & earned his Masters of Music from the University of New Orleans as a member of the Louis Armstrong Quintet.

Past collaborators

Nathan Weidenhaft (AKA Nathan J. Normand)
Collaborator : Guitarist / PWM software designer co-founder

Nathan Weidenhaft is a New Orleans based artist, sound engineer and musician. Professional credits include: musical scores for various films, including the 2011 Emmy Award winning documentary, “All Over but To Cry”. As a musician he has performed and recorded with the ground-breaking and national renown electro-acoustic band, Signal Path and throughout the country, sharing stages with such artists as The Wailers, Buddy Miles, Nelly, Galactic, amoung others. Weidenhaft is a recording engineer for various national music acts including Philip Anselmo(of Pantera), members of The Radiators, Beau Soule, members of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, and countless others. In collaboration with Marcus Brown, Weidenhaft develops custom software and technology that integrates sound and the visual arts medium in never before seen ways. His education background includes but not limited to a Masters Degree from the University Of New Orleans and a graduate of the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts(NOCCA).

Eric Gold 

Eric Gold was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. Classically trained on the piano as a child, he began teaching himself the drums at age fourteen. As a senior in high school he was accepted to NOCCA for jazz drumming, where he began his formal training. In high school and leading up to Katrina, Eric played in various groups ranging from jazz and funk to heavy metal. He continued his musical education at UNO in the jazz studies program. After Katrina Eric was relocated to Portland, Oregon where he finished his Bachelor of Music with a jazz emphasis at Portland State University. While living in Portland Eric played professionally as a jazz musician as well as taught private lessons. He also played in a ten piece funk ensemble called Philly's Phunkestra. With this band he had the opportunity to share the stage with many big name traveling acts such as: Galactic, Dumpstaphunk, Rebirth Brass Band, Oregone, The Wailers, Mr. Lif, Questlove of The Roots, and more. In October of 2011 he moved back to New Orleans where he currently lives today. Eric is making contacts with many New Orleans musicians and plans to be a name on the scene.
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Andrew Bertholf 

Andrew Bertholf is sculptor, musician, photographer, sound and video artist. He has a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).  He’s done video, recording and photography HouseCore record’s Ponykiller (link) on their national Down tour. In addition he has done live media recordings and engineering, mastering for Paint with music and dozens of other bands. Bertholf has also run commercial sculpture and fabrication shops, creating large scale lighting and video installations for a number of arena shows and sporting events. He produces his own music under the name of Ghost Solipsist and composes the music for the web series Good Morning Antioch. Bertholf exhibits his work nationally and internationally.

Big Chief John Ellison​ - The Original Wild Tchoupitoulas

​Doug Garrison

In addition to being the regular drummer for the roots rock band The Iguanas for over 18 years, Doug Garrison has toured or performed with Rufus and Carla Thomas, “Duck” Dunn, Phineas Newborn, Jr., Mose Allison, Snooks Eaglin, Eugene Chadbourne, Steve Bernstein and John Abercrombie, among others. His recording credits include Alex Chilton, Jim Dickinson, Charlie Rich, Helen Gillet, The Naked Orchestra, and numerous tracks for major motion pictures. ​

​Steve Masakowski 

Steve Masakowski (born September 2, 1954) is jazz guitarist, educator, and inventor. He invented the guitar-based keytar and the switch pick and has designed three, custom-built seven-string guitars. He developed an approach to playing the guitar by using his pick design, allowing him to switch from fingerpicking to flatpicking.
He has released solo albums and has worked with Johnny Adams, Mose Allison, Dave Liebman, Ellis Marsalis, Jr., Carl Fontana, Rick Margitza, Bobby McFerrin, Nicholas Payton, Dianne Reeves, Sam Rivers, Woody Shaw, Alvin Tyler, and Bennie Wallace. Since 1987, he has been a member of the band Astral Project.

He has been voted Best Guitarist twice and included as a member of Astral Project in the Best Contemporary Jazz Group three times by Gambit and Offbeat magazines in their annual readers' poll. He has published lessons in Guitar Player magazine and wrote the book Jazz Ear Training – Learning to Hear Your Way Through Music for Mel Bay Publications. He has also been recognized by Down Beat magazine as Guitar Talent Deserving Wider Recognition.[2]  From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Masakowski