LIJF 2026: Song For My Father: The Jazz Photography of William Ellis 

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NB: This photographic exhibition will run in the Capstone Foyer from Tuesday 3rd Feb - Sun 15th April 2026, coinciding with Liverpool International Jazz Festival 2026. There will be a Private View event on Thursday 26th February 2026 at 6pm with the photographer, William Ellis, in attendance.

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Jazz is an art form rooted in improvisation and spontaneity - photography shares this instantaneous nature of creation in capturing for us an in-the-moment impression which provides  a visual context that enriches our understanding and appreciation of the music’s cultural and social environment. 

Images of musicians onstage or in rehearsal spaces, even in their own homes as you will see in this exhibition, reveal details about performance practices, instrumentation, fashion and interpersonal dynamics.

About the photographer:

William Ellis (b. Liverpool 1957) is self-taught.

His work has appeared in The Times, The Guardian, New Statesman and on the BBC, magazines and record covers.

He is a co-author of the forthcoming book Rethinking Miles Davis published by Oxford University Press.

His photographs have been exhibited in the United States, Canada, Cuba, South Africa, Europe, China and the Far East. They are in numerous private collections and those of National Portrait Gallery, London, the Archive of Contemporary Music, New York, The American Jazz Museum, Kansas City MO, and on display at Birdland, New York.

His reggae project One Love, produced in his role as Visiting Research Fellow in Photographing Popular Music Culture at Birmingham City University is in the archives of the University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica.

Musicians featured in this exhibition include Clark Terry, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dizzy Gillespie, Emmet Cohen, Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver, Lenny White, Marcus Miller, McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, Nancy Wilson, Pat Metheny, Ravi Coltrane, Ron Cater and Tony Bennett.