Third Sun

Third Sun was an improvisational band. Several live recordings exist from jams and concerts but the band never made any studio LPs or official releases that I am aware of. Here is what Doug wrote in an great article on early US Spacerock History. "Third Sun, one of NYC's original ProgressiveRock units when formed in 1971, the band had mutated a sound not unlike VDGG playing the Art Ensemble of Chicago songbook and Long Island based Master Radio Canaries, but few recordings exist and neither band engaged in studio recording. Both groups engaged in performance at prestigious venues like Environ, Jazzmania and CBGB, although performances usually left the Punk rock audiences bewildered, and the Jazzbos confused!"

Mark Adler added: "The initial incarnation of Third Sun was Doug Walker (flute, soprano sax,vibes), Ron McCalla (organ, electric piano), Paul "Pablo" "Coca" Calogero
(tenor, bari, soprano sax), Lee Teich (guitar), Marc Adler (drums, percussion, vibes). (Note the "c' at the end of Marc). I left in the summer of 1976 to go to college. If I remember correctly (which is very difficult to do nowadays), the Brook gig was the only one that this incarnation of the band played live. We were joined by Dave Javalosa, a "totally hippied out" electric piano and synth player from Southern California."

Members
Doug Walker- Soprano Sax, Vibes, Electronics, Flute
Ron McCalla- Organ, Electric Piano
Pable Cologero- Baritone and Soprano Saxes, Flute, Bass, Percussion
Lee Teich- Guitar
David Javelosa- Electric Piano, Organ
Mark Adler- Drums, Vibes

Gigs

The Brook, Brooklyn, NY 3/76
The Environ, NYC 5/15/76

Memories

Here are some thoughts from people who werein the band or worked with the band, such as long time recording engineer for the band and great friend of Doug's RB

Oh my goodness!! The show at The Brook! I also remember it well...as if, as you say, it was only yesterday. I always felt a little bad for the proprietors of the venue over that show. After all, it was run for the most part as a kind of low key, poetry and theatre oriented loft space, maybe a little jazz, a little chamber music...after all, it was basically someones home...and then, one night, we invaded!! They never knew what hit 'em. I'll bet they remember it as clearly as we, though I think the captions on their mental pictures might read a little differently than do ours, eh? And I too possess exactly one cassette
of Third Sun material that is just waiting the chance to be digitized. Too afraid to let it out of my hands, for one thing. It is a treasured memory. The one side is a truly lovely set played out of doors late one summer, '76, I think, just slightly after your time with us...on the roof, to be precise, of the second Boerum Hill 'group home', as my mom used to call it; it starts out with Ron, Doug and Pablo C.('Coca',
if you will) in trio and one or two others added toward the end, if I remember aright. Runs most of a forty five minute side. The funny thing about that performance...more a footnote, really...was that on the day it was quite well recieved, as we learned later on, we had people gathering in the street out front to listen and folks could be seen hanging out the windows of the buildings nearby that had a view...it was no Beatles on the roof of Apple, you understand, but we had an unintended and appreciative audience, not like the villagers brandishing torches and pitchforks that we usually got back then. The
punchline is that the next Monday(this impromptu performance was on a Saturday) we were burgled...all of the recording gear and most of the bands equipment went out the basement door, right past the watchful eyes but decidedly too accommodating nature of Manchu, the watch dog. The other side of that tape (and the reason I bring it up at all) consists, I think now, of a recording of at least a part of the
show at The Brook. Not the best recording I ever made, and a truly raucous performance, as undisciplined as ever we were (the tape even contains 'The Battle of the Vibraphone', though you have to know what to listen for *wink, wink*), but probably a better reptesentation of the reality than the other side. Would love to know what you have. Again, thanks for the memory. I may have the half inch masters for the 'KCR sessions' squirreled away in my sweetie pie's garage...at least I think that's what's on 'em...Douglas and accurate labels didn't always mix and the box in question is blissfully free of descriptive information of any kind, but I think that Doug used to tell me that that was what was contained therein, whereupon we would idly speculate for a while on the likelihood of ever having in our possession a compatible machine...David Javelosa was a trip and a half...and a hustler and a half as well, a young man on the make...I didn't get to see the gig of which you write but I do remember that Dave J. borrowed Ron McCalla's beautiful Fender Rhodes piano for the afternoon...and managed to destroy it those few hours. It came back with the legs in pieces, the action ruined and the pedal...well, anyway, I was absolutely livid. Hope he made it big somewhere, he had all the tools, so to speak. I don't remember him ever being formally a part of T.S...his inability to produce the multiple keyboards he professed ownership of was a major stumbling block...which sucked, really, cause that boy had some chops on him, but he was such a bright flash in the pan that the several weeks he was around do loom large in ones memories. And you're
quite right, he lacked the feel and much of the, how to put it, context, maybe, to express himself in our chosen idiom. Sayyyy...if I read correctly, this is the hundredth post on this site!! Woohooo!!
Laughing out loud, as they say...

RB