Alex van Heerden

Alex van Heerden
Birth name Alex Scott Van Heerden
Also known as Dandyesque
Born c. (1974-11-23)23 November 1974[1]
Died 7 January 2009(2009-01-07) (aged 34)[2]
Car accident on the N2 near Cape Town
Genres Jazz, ghoema, vastrap, boeremusiek, the riel,[3] electronic music[3]
Occupation(s) Musician
Instruments Accordion, trumpet, voice
Labels smallfunk, New Cape Records
Associated acts Sons of Table Mountain, Gramadoelas, Håkan Lidbo, Delta Optel Band,[4][5][6][7] Sagtevlei (with Derek Gripper and Brydon Bolton)
Website frontierrogue.com
Notable instruments
Trumpet, accordion, voice

Alex van Heerden (c. 23 November 1974[1] — 7 January 2009[2]) was a musician and artist of Cape Town, South Africa.[2][3][8][9] He worked with Robbie Jansen in Jansen's jazz group Sons of Table Mountain.[1][6][10][11] According to himself, he was a "South African trumpeter, vocalist, accordionist, producer, composer, historian and explorer".[2][8][12]

Career

He was a self-taught musician that started to play trumpet at age 17, to avoid compulsory military training, during the apartheid era of South Africa. Later, on he began exploring music throughout various ways; jazz, the Karoo desert, vastrap, ghoema and electronic music played important roles.[1][2][3][7][9][11][13]

Van Heerden also worked together with Swedish musician and producer Håkan Lidbo, creating electronic music on the side of the jazz and the vastrap he's been making. In a whole, he was a truly creative musician, always finding his own interpretations of both old and new music genres, developing music in a true way.

He worked, together with his brother-in-law, composer and guitarist Derek Gripper, to recreate the rural music of the Western Cape within an acoustic setting. Together they created a style of music dubbed avant-goema, using string quartet, guitar, trumpet, vocals and accordion to open up new musical spaces within the musical landscapes of vastrap, langarm, boeremusiek, goema, and contemporary minimalism, jazz and improvisation. Their two CD releases, Sagtevlei and Ale!x document this unique musical journey, as well as the score for the work for string quartet, guitar, accordion and trumpet Spore by die Bek van 'n Ystervarkgat.[2][6][7][9]

Death

Van Heerden died, age 34, in a car accident in Cape Town.[1][2][6][8]

Discography

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Version en ligne du Magazine. | Le site JazzMagazine.com | Jazz, Pour, Dans, Des, Hilton | Au sommaire, Jazzenda, Disques d'émoi, Ecoutez , Galeries, Archives, Boutique, Forum". Jazzmagazine.com. 2009-01-19. Retrieved 2011-09-28.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Archived January 9, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Archived May 1, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ↑ Archived May 2, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ https://web.archive.org/20090503073155/http://www.solms-delta.co.za:80/press_clippings/0901/Die-Burger-16-January-2009.htm. Archived from the original on May 3, 2009. Retrieved January 25, 2009. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. 1 2 3 4
  7. 1 2 3 https://web.archive.org/20090503072815/http://www.solms-delta.co.za:80/press_clippings/0901/Cape-Times-9-January-2009.htm. Archived from the original on May 3, 2009. Retrieved January 25, 2009. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  8. 1 2 3 Independent Newspapers Online (2010-05-05). "IOL.co.za". Cape Times. Retrieved 2011-09-28.
  9. 1 2 3 https://web.archive.org/20090503075150/http://www.solms-delta.co.za:80/press_clippings/0901/Weekend-Argus-11-January-2009.htm. Archived from the original on May 3, 2009. Retrieved January 25, 2009. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  10. ↑ His own memoirs on www.frontierrogue.com
  11. 1 2
  12. ↑ About himself on www.frontierrogue.com
  13. ↑ https://web.archive.org/20090503074928/http://www.solms-delta.co.za:80/main/alex-van-heerden-pr.html. Archived from the original on May 3, 2009. Retrieved January 18, 2009. Missing or empty |title= (help)

External links

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