The One LP Project

Celebration the Birthday of much missed maestro Mulgrew Miller.
Portrait made at Brecon Jazz Festival.
C. William Ellis

Fab Bailey show in Soho. Never shown before.

Robert Glasper is a leading artist working in multiple genres whose Robtober residency at Blue Note New York where he brings together musicians who perhaps would not have the opportunity to work together - they take the music further.
Robert likes this image - he actually had it printed onto a tee shirt for the NPR Tiny Desk Concert by August Greene (Common, Robert Glasper, Karriem Riggins, Bilal)

You can see this and 119 other portraits and interviews at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow until 26th July

Robert Glasper: Musician
Slum Village: Fantastic ,Vol 2 released 2000

“The reason this album is special to me is because the producer of the album - J Dilla is my favourite hip hop producer and I got the privilege to actually work with him before he passed away in 2006. To work with him - watch him make music - watch him in ‘the lab’ and see how he works. So this particular album Fantastic Volume 2 - when it came out, was to me the first time a record that made people start playing in that hip hop way behind the beat - kind of sloppy hip hop way - all that stuff started with Dilla. I think he was definitely ahead of his time and a genius of his time.
So that’s why I chose this record.”
Robert Glasper: Hilton Garden Inn, Glasgow, 28th June 2012.

I’m very privileged to have met a number of great photographers who helped define the visual heritage of an era.
Terry O’Neill is one who brilliantly defined several. I was fortunate that he kindly agreed to participate in the One LP Project and arranged to meet at his offices in Mayfair.
This portrait along with 119 others are on view at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow till 26th July.
I have also included a portrait of Terry at the Richard Goodall Gallery with his photograph off a very young Keith Richards

Terry O’Neill: Photographer
Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong: Ella and Louis released 1957
“I have had this particular album for around 54 years and I’ve never stopped playing it since the day I bought it.
It’s Ella and Louis with the Oscar Peterson Quartet and it’s the finest bit of jazz singing I’ve heard - ever. and they sing all the great songs by all the great writers - (released in 1957) Christ - all that time!”

Terry O’Neill: Scott’s, Mayfair, London, July 2011
© William Ellis

Delighted that the One LP exhibition at Street Level Photoworks has been extended to 26th July.
Jürgen Schadeberg - the great German-born photographer South African - recipient of numerous awards including Leica Hall of Fame and ICP Cornell Capa Lifetime Achievement Award. Seen here with one of iconic portraits of Nelson Mandela.
I was privileged to present a joint exhibition with him in Cape Town.
Time spent with a master.

Maestro Cory Henry - One LP exhibition at Street Level Photoworks- open now - formerly with Snarky Snarky now with his own band. I was at the Inglewood Photography Festival Inglewood Photo Festival Inc. a few weeks ago and Cory was appearing at the theatre a few days later. Cory Henry: Musician
Cory Henry / One LP - Stevie Wonder: Songs in the Key of Life released 1976
“I chose Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life record was one of the first vinyls I’ve ever heard in my life. And when I heard it, and actually understood what was happening.
Musically, it changed my life forever. And the songs now that I listened to it - I still listen to it. And now it has a brand new meaning as a grown man than it did when I was about, you know, maybe eight years old, when I think when I first heard it and lyrically it speaks passed the time it was written - it’s so important to what’s going on in today’s society.
Cory Henry: Band on the Wall, Manchester, 2nd November 2016.

Am enroute to Glasgow for the 40th Glasgow Jazz Festival and my talk today!

Feature in Jazzwise on the show - now open in association with the 40th Glasgow Jazz Festival https://www.jazzwise.com/content/news/photographer-william-ellis-s-the-one-lp-project-comes-to-glasgow

One LP is a journey into another’s soul - the album each person choses to hold and talk about is a part of them: their past, present and future.

Exhibition at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow now open.

Johnny Marr: One LP - Iggy Pop and The Stooges, Raw Power released 1973

“I think music and painting does it better - particularly abstract painting does it better (than a lyric) because language immediately by definition quantifies things and what I’m talking about is this extrasensory aspect - and all the greatest music that hooked me as a kid did that - it’s like the promise of a different world that you weren’t living in but at the same time you recognised it - it was familiar.

I can’t ever disassociate this record from all those things because it was so powerful to me. So even if I wasn’t in the mood to listen rock ‘n’ roll music I would always have that massive connection with this record because it really sums up a big period of my life that seemed to be constantly strewn in sodium light that was coming through the windows of my bedroom in my parents council house you know.

I’d turn all the lights off and there was one of those big yellow street lights outside the window that would seep through the room from late September till spring really, so it seemed like an eternity as a 15 year old and I would just listen to that record and play along with it.

I understood it without having to analyse it – “I’m a street walking cheater with a heart full of napalm” is the opening lyric.”

Johnny Marr: Richard Goodall Gallery, Northern Quarter, Manchester, 23rd February 2011 © William Ellis

One LP Exhibition at Street Level, Glasgow presented in association with the 40th Glasgow Jazz Festival. Jack Bruce: One LP - Olivier Messiaen - L’ascension (Thomas Trotter) released 1993

“It’s called L’ascension by Olivier Messiaen who was a French composer I have loved for most of my life.
Why I love his compositions is he shows that music has always existed.”

Humans only stole it. We borrowed it - but it’s in nature. It holds the universe together, ask any skylark or ask any blackbird, they’ll tell you.”

Jack Bruce: Band on the Wall, Manchester, 24th March, 2011. c. William Ellis