When trumpeter, accordion-player and composer Alex van Heerden was killed in a car crash early on Wednesday, it was a great loss to South African music.

When trumpeter, accordion-player and composer Alex van Heerden was killed in a car crash early on Wednesday, it was a great loss to South African music.

Van Heerden played across a wide-spectrum of musical genres and in a dizzying array of communities. In the Kalahari, he sat for hours with local musicians, learning their songs and understanding the history behind them; with The Sons of Table Mountain he played the jazz of the Western Cape and the world; with the Goema Captains of Cape Town he was part of the contemporary revitalisation of a genre; in his Sagtevlei project he explored acoustic instrumentation; and, with ELX, he was an early local pioneer of electronica.

The teenage Van Heerden |moved from Port Elizabeth to Johannesburg, joining The Genuines at the tender age of 17, and playing a blend of goema and rock...