SAN MATEO COUNTY, Calif. (KRON) — The Bay Area jazz community is mourning the loss of one of their own. Friends have confirmed that 58-year-old Andrew Speight was killed after his vehicle was hit by a Caltrain in Burlingame on Thursday.

Speight was described to me as fun, passionate and supportive. His loved ones are having a hard time coming to terms with this tragic and sudden loss. Friends, family, and members of the Bay Area jazz community are devastated they’ll never hear Speight play his horn again. He died Thursday.

He was a professor of music at San Francisco State University. His bio describes him as “One of the Bay Area’s most lively and lyrical exponents of straight-ahead, joyous jazz.” His friend of nearly two decades Jeff Kaliss couldn’t agree more.

“As a musician he was brilliant,” Kaliss said. “Both in terms of his imagination when approaching jazz and just what came out of his horn.”

Speight’s car was hit by a Caltrain in Burlingame. Officials say he drove onto the tracks at the station near Broadway and California drive.

Kaliss says when he heard the news, he was in shock.

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“I was totally in rejection,” he said. “I just couldn’t believe it and I scrambled to find out what the truth was and the truth was not what I wanted it to be.”

Kaliss says the entire Bay Area jazz community is feeling this loss.

“It feels like you’re losing a member of a big family, an important member of the family,” Kaliss said. “Jazz is like a family in the Bay Area.”

Speight was originally from Australia. He moved to the states to lead the jazz program at Michigan State University before moving to SFSU.

Kaliss says Speight would do anything for his students. Kaliss expects that the jazz community will be holding events to continue to remember speight and his legacy for months to come.