At Charlie O’s: VAn Nuys, CA
Posted in Los Angeles on March 09, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Good music, little light. Except for this image.
clark terry – recording academy® lifetime achievement award: ct at hilton hotel nyc, 2004
Posted in Artists, New York on February 03, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Jimmy Heath with Clark Terry and friends
Congratulations to Clark Terry on his recent award recognising his great contribution to the culture. These photographs were taken at the IAJE International Conference in January 2004, so sorry I don’t know who the lady is but I do know who is sitting behind her – is that Maria Callas too, Nancy Wilson’s throne awaits.
I don’t normally use flash but on these two occasions it was needed, won’t tell what I was called at the side of the stage – it was a blinding flash.
In Memory – Ed Thigpen: Toronto, 2003
Posted in Artists, New York, Portrait, Toronto on January 25, 2010 at 12:27 am
I met Ed Thigpen backstage a few minutes before he was due to play with Benny Green and Russell Malone at the IAJE International Conference. The atmosphere was very relaxed so I asked him if he had a little time to spare so that I could photograph him, he smiled so I asked him to step over towards the stage manager’s lectern which a little shielded light on it bouncing the light up from the papers on it and made this portrait. We met up again at the Hilton in New York in 2006, it was great to see him, he was as busy as ever and chatted for a while about what we’d been up to – projects, gigs and it was such a pleasure to give him a large print of the picture you see here, he was so pleased and so was I.
A wonderful man and a real Master, we’ll all miss him. Bless.
Teófilo Stevenson
Posted in Cuba on January 24, 2010 at 9:36 am
Teófilo Stevenson at home in Havana: 2009
I don’t know much about boxing except you’ve got to be tough, fit, have great courage, explosive power, possess millisecond timing, great technique, killer instinct, psychological insight and like dancing.
Simple, unless somebody else with the above attributes is trying to knock your block off!
In February last year my friend Jonathan in Havana arranged to take me along with another amigo Bob to meet one of the greatest heavyweight boxers ever – Teófilos Stevenson. Winner of 3 Olympic Gold Medals and undefeated for 11 years. We arrived at his home, were welcomed by his lovely wife and waited a while until Teó returned. There was boxing memorabilia, some beautiful art and superb images of him in full flight. Teó is a great Cuban national hero – you can see the picture here of him in the background with Fidel Castro.
Teó walked in and filled the room with his personality; in fact he filled the room with an awesome presence.
We were introduced and he struck me as a real gentleman – relaxed and warm in his home. He’s looked after himself, is in great shape, charismatic and good humoured.
Meeting and photographing Teó was a great privilege, during the conversation he said that he thought of Fidel as his second father and spoke about his trainer Andrei Chervonenko very warmly and it was clear how close they had been from Teó’s expression and tone.
He joked around Muhammad Ali style – he turned down a match with him, $5,000,000 was offered and many people in the boxing world believe that Teó would have been a very real contender.
Ali and Teó became great friends, there can be two of the Greatest – if they say so!
Being with Teó was to be for a short time in that world of grace and danger. The history of the sport, the politics of the time. A very memorable afternoon.
Many thanks and best wishes to Teó his family and to Jonathan.
jamie safiruddin quartet debut: cinnamon club bowdon
Posted in Performance on January 24, 2010 at 12:09 am
This young quartet have lived before I think – the way they play suggests this! Sam Rapley ts, Pete Turner b, Calum Lee d and Jamie playing the grand. Original music by Jamie mixed with some very mature arrangements of material by Bobo Stenson, Pat Metheny, Rogers and Hart and Keith Jarrett gave the gig an engaging pace – and the audience some familiar material whilst maintaining a strong feel in the 2 sets. Jamie chatted between tunes and in the second set explained they would now play something they meant to play in the first set, they were so in the moment – top man, easily done.
The exuberance was contagious although the place was packed and you could hear a pin drop most of the time, and a few jaws actually. Such a very special atmosphere when people hear young players take off.
Fidel Castro: Havana 2002 ( La Habana es Cuba )
Posted in Cuba on January 24, 2010 at 12:08 am
I first visited Cuba in December 2002 to photograph at Jazz Plaza Festival and because, for many years, Cuba had always fascinated me with its history and pivotal place in world politics. Hemingway’s connections, Winston Churchill was there in 1885, cigars and rum. Oh and the music, the great music, Dizzy Gillespie visits, Jaco Pastorius played there with John McLaughlin and Tony Williams. Reason enough whatever the right order. No matter. I’d been e-mailing someone there whose details I had been given by a friend months before – and who had given me the impression that he had connections with the festival organisers. Almost at the last minute I found he wasn’t really that close to them – so was, in effect, going on a flyer, no accreditation but I can be persuasive. Everything was booked, the flight, the hotel – I was definitely going.
It was a 10 hour flight and I arrived early evening took the bus to the hotel – La Florida on Obispo, checked in and went out to explore old Havana. I was wired.
Came back and the band were still playing, dancers still dancing in the hotel and I was in the zone.
Next day I walked down to Plaza de Armas to the book stalls, visited a lot of the beautiful buildings and galleries and was heading back to the hotel when I saw crowds in one of the squares, military vehicles, limos and lots of very big security men around.
I knew it would only be for one man – Fidel. I couldn’t believe, waited for around 30 minutes and he emerged from attending a children’s Christmas choir service.
I had the 90 mm on the Leica, not quite Korda and Che Guevara but we do have Fidel being interviewed under the boom mike in a crowd of media and minders. I wish I had been closer but my survival instinct told me it was best not to move around too much – those guys were not going to take any prisoners so near to the Comandante en Jefe.
That was my first day in Havana, I needed a mojito, maybe two
To be continued.
Spencer Tunick
Posted in Uncategorised on January 23, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Ran into Spencer Tunick a few weeks ago, I’m sure you’re familiar with his amazing works. He was intrigued by the 24 TS-E lens on my 1DS3 with which I was doing a few pictures at my exhibition, it was alot of fun and unexpected pleasure showing him around too!
Spencer (R) and William © Sam Ellis
Elbow with the Hallé: Manchester
Posted in Uncategorised on September 08, 2009 at 10:32 am
First Night: Elbow and the Halle Orchestra, Manchester Festival(Rated 5/ 5 )
Local legends combine to create hypnotic masterpiece
By Jonathan Brown
Thursday, 9 July 2009
During the course of their illustrious 150 year history the Halle Orchestra have enjoyed their fair share of pinnacle moments. Premiering work by Edward Elgar and Gustav Mahler must rank up there in the working life of Britain’s longest-serving professional symphony orchestra.
But even these landmark occasions can scarcely have generated quite as much love, goodwill and sheer pleasure as last night’s collaboration with fellow Mancunian favourites Elbow. The pairing of these two local legends old and new was another inspired choice which draws to a close the first week of the second Manchester International Festival.
It was clear from the start that even with the massive level of expectation for the first of only two sell-out shows at the glorious Bridgewater Hall that this was going to be something special. True, Elbow have form in the orchestral collaboration department having won plaudits when they performed with the BBC Orchestra to recreate their Mercury-winning album The Seldom Seen Kid earlier this year. But front man Guy Garvey, a performer without a scintilla of pretension about him, had promised that they were saving something special for the home gig.
That something special was provided in the form of contemporary composer Joe Dudell, another leading Manchester musical figure, who had spent months brilliantly orchestrating work from across the Elbow back catalogue.
Arriving on stage to an adulatory welcome, Garvey, whose singing was a revelation throughout, was joined by soaring violins, punching brass, grand timpani and the celestial voices of the Halle Youth Orchestra before launching into a luxurious version of “Mirrorball”, fragments of spinning light cannoning off the delighted faces of the crowd. For the increasingly ubiquitous “Grounds for Divorce”, Garvey called on the audience not just to sing but clap and stomp along.
“The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver” again benefited from the gargantuan changes of scale and mood that only a full orchestra can bring about. In “Some Riot”, Garvey roared “brother if I don’t run with these fuckers” but it didn’t sound odd at all. The first half finished with a specially extended version of “Weather to Fly”.
By now Garvey was beaming with genuine pride and delight at what had been created here – and was rewarded with a standing ovation for his efforts. After the interval a newly written overture to “Starlings” offered a lush and tender counterpoint to the Gershwin-like stabs of brass. At times the sensation from the rest of the set was akin to floating through warm honey. But while this was new territory for Elbow – ball gowns rather than vest tops in the audience – they were enjoying every moment of it.
The last track, “Powder Blue”, was a hypnotic masterpiece of climbing horns and sad strings. The sheer number of people on stage meant there could be none of the encore ritual so the inevitable finale “One Day Like This” followed straight on with none of the usual shenanigans. The audience discarded classical conventions to stand; lovers’ arms snaked round hips and the swaying began. So mesmerising was what had preceded that it looked at one point as if the showstopper was in danger of being upstaged. But by the end the Bridgewater Hall was a sea of waving arms set against peals of chiming bells. Tonight a special surprise is promised for the final show. This however, as Garvey had pointed out from the off, was a lovely, lovely thing.
I photographed the concert as part of the project which I was commissioned to do by the Bridgewater Hall and was an event programmed by Manchester International Festival. (more…)
