Soko Steidle live at Natt Jazz, Bergen 2012

While we're doing jazz in Bergen, this is a collection of three videos recorded in late May this year during the Nattjazz festival in Bergen. Soko Steidle is a Berlin-based combo given to free improvisation and housing ultra-fine front line jazzers in Rudi Mahall (again) and Henrik Walsdorff with Jan Roder and Oliver Steidle, the leader.

These chaps have three cds out so far, the two most recent ones on Jazz Werkstatt, which you are hereby advised to run out and get. This was uploaded by Steidle, but obviously not recorded by him as he was playing, except for the first sequence which has them heading down Vetrlidsalmenningen and along Vågsbunnen with Walsdorff in a wheelchair(!). Practical jokers, eh? I always make a point of catching them whenever they are in town and so also on this occasion., being seated a little bit to the right of the stage. Keep an eye out for some superb Mahall leg twitching and Walsdorffian bohemian chic. A sure sense of sartorial elegance all around.

Henrik Walsdorff - as
Rudi Mahall - bcl
Jan Roder - ba
Oliver Steidle - dr