Elbow and The Hallé

I’ve been commissioned by the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester’s £42 million state of the art concert hall to create a body of work which encompasses the many different types of performance hosted there.
This is a particularly inspiring project for me and has enabled me to work in other genres of music.
Artists included are Liza Minnelli, Buena Vista Social Club, Tommy Emmanuel, Nick Lowe, Christy Moore, Colin Currie, Acoustic Archery, Roberto Fonseca and familiar faces to me - Buddy Guy and Herbie Hancock.
As part of the bi-annual Manchester International Festival two special performances by Manchester band Elbow and The Hallé took place at the Hall – which is the home venue of The Hallé Orchestra and I was fortunate enough to be there and shoot it.

I’m listening to a lot more classical music these days – as well as Marley, Dylan, Hendrix – Cash and many more, the sound in the Hall was superb, a great night.

This project will culminate in an exhibition in spring next year to be held at Manchester’s premier independent gallery in the Northern Quarter – The Richard Goodall Gallery.

Humphrey Lyttelton

I was going through some shots of great trumpeters I have the other day.
Clark Terry, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Roy Hargrove, Randy Brecker, ‘Sweets’ Edison, Lester Bowie and of course the gentleman – ‘Humph’, who was I believe a great friend of Louis Armstrong.
I only photographed Humph once, at the Cinnamon Club, Bowdon near Manchester where he played with his full band.
I was shooting stage left and when he came off for the interval he asked if they were my photographs in the club gallery, I answered they were and in his top Eton accent exclaimed ‘Marvellous shots!’

I met him a couple of times after, once to sign his ‘Artist’s Edition’ of the picture you see here and once in Manchester when Neil Hughes, owner of the Cinnamon Club and I presented him with this photograph beautifully framed with some more copies from edition of fifty.
We then went to a recording of Humph chairing the BBC classic I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue’ at the Opera House – marvellous show!

Humph was the first to create the Artist’s Edition, I’m delighted to say that Jazz and Blues greats Paul Jones, Martin Taylor and the Godfather of British Jazz – Stan Tracey have since done so.

You can see the set at my web site in the Prints section.
Georgie Fame is choosing an image of himself in concert soon and will be included in the ‘Artist’s Edition’ in the autumn.

Jazz Photography

Here is some Jazz Photography by William Ellis - International Jazz Photographer

William Ellis has undoubtedly reached and surpassed all respective peaks of jazz music photographic reportage. His CV and accomplishments include the inaugural exhibition at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City; an outreach programme of exhibitions about Jazz appreciation organised by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC as well as several international exhibitions and inclusion in many private collections. Ellis is widely travelled in Africa, Europe and the Americas as a jazz photographer. The breadth and depth of his jazz photographs and their subjects are widely regarded as a significant archive of the international jazz scene across these continents.
Iconic images of Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, B.B.KIng, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Stan Tracey and Martin Taylor are just a few of the major figures in jazz portrayed in Ellis's body of work.
Fine art prints and other media are available for purchase on the web site. william-ellis.com

Fine art prints and other media are available for purchase on the web site. william-ellis.com