In The Beginning The son of a child psychiatrist father and a well-known Broadway producer mother, David grew up in New York's lower east side, and spent his teen years in Greenwich Village. Playing guitar since age 8, he heard his first live bluegrass band at 15 and instantly fell in love with the sound. This prompted him to save up for his first serious guitar --- a Martin D-28 which he still owns and plays to this day. Early music heroes were Bill Monroe and John Coltrane. The influences of country music and jazz are equally strong in David's original compositions. The Beatles and other great "pop" groups were also strong influences. In the late '60's, David attended Columbia University and played in a band called Voltaire's Nose with old friend Christopher Guest (Spinal Tap etc.). "Following gigs as the house band at fraternity parties, we would ride our amplifiers (which were on wheels) down Amsterdam Avenue back to my apartment (only 3 blocks from the Apollo Theater!)." This would not be the last time these two would collaborate. In more recent years Nichtern has composed the score for Guest's film The Big Picture as well as several TV productions. Broadway Bound After college, it became clear that Nichtern was not going to follow in his father's footsteps and become a shrink. "Well, not professionally anyhow." Instead, he followed in his mother's footsteps (literally), right to a theater on Broadway to play in the band for the production of Jimmy Shine, starring Dustin Hoffman, hot off his ground-breaking role in The Graduate. Nepotism not withstanding (the producer was his mother, the conductor his beloved uncle Irv), David passed the audition with the show's composer, the Loving Spoonful's own John Sebastian, and his career as a professional musician was launched! After spending almost a year performing in the pit orchestra, David left Jimmy Shine and started playing actively in New York City's early '70's "folk-rock" scene. He played his own material and accompanied dozens of performers, working up and down Bleecker and McDougal streets. "I usually ended up at Nobody's Bar and Grill on Bleecker Street until 4:00 AM when the lights were rudely turned on and everyone was sent home to an early breakfast." After playing on a recording session with some of New York's great studio musicians, Nichtern decided to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston where he studied arranging and composition for a year. Returning to New York and his beloved Greenwich Village, Nichtern met and played with Loudon Wainwright III, the McGarrigles, David Bromberg, Artie and Happy Traum, "and finally, fortuitously Maria Muldaur. We hit it off and worked together to get her own solo album deal with Warner Bros. Records." Camels and Cacti This album, produced by then A&R director Lenny Waronker, contained the now classic song Midnight at the Oasis, which Nichtern wrote, arranged and played guitar on. This song has seemed to have a life of it's own, with more than 50 cover records. Midnight at the Oasis received two Grammy nominations and was recently re-recorded by the group The Brand New Heavies where it was a major hit in England and throughout the rest of Europe. For several years, Nichtern toured with Maria Muldaur as her guitarist and musical director. On a trip to San Francisco, he stopped in on old friend David Grisman and jammed with his new band at the Great American Music Hall. Also playing that night were Jerry Garcia (on banjo), Richard Greene (fiddle), and Taj Mahal (bass). Nichtern moved to SF and formed a group with these fellows called (appropriately enough) the Great American Music Band. The group played around the SF area and even opened several Grateful Dead concerts. It was a kind of bluegrass/improv that David Grisman fully developed into what is now known as Dawg music. At that time (1975 about) Nichtern decided to start his own band and flew Hank DeVito ("Queen of Hearts") out to SF to play pedal-steel guitar. The resulting ensemble was dubbed Nichtern and the Nocturns. "We played around the Bay Area for about a year, joined by Nicollete Larson on vocals (shown in the photo singing with David). Later that year, DeVito, and Larson and I all moved to LA to pursue our careers." Bright Lights, Big City In LA, Nichtern (literally) bumped into another old friend -- Jonathan Kaplan. Kaplan was directing a film for Roger Corman entitled The Student Teachers. "He asked me to do the score and title song for the film with a whopping Hollywood budget of $2,000 total!! Ah, those were the days!" If history is boring you and physics is too tough Latin seems outdated and phys ed's a little rough If all that education's turning you into a fool I can teach a lesson that you'll never learn in school Cause I'm the teacher baby........... From '75-'78 Nichtern was in LA writing songs, playing guitar on sessions and doing another film score for Kaplan (White Line Fever with Jan-Michael Vincent and Kay Lenz), "this time for a major studio (Columbia) with a real orchestra and a real salary!" He also produced a record for the McGarrigles called Pronto Monto. From 1970 on, Nichtern had been studying Tibetan Buddhism with a teacher named Chogyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. Trungpa Rinpoche was becoming well known as a teacher who was able to adapt to the free-style American idiom of the 1970's, and translate traditional Buddhist teachings into that idiom. He started meditation centers all over the United States with major contemplative centers in Vermont and Boulder, Colorado. In 1978, Nichtern was invited to be director of the center in Vermont (called Karme-Choling). He spent two years there, occasionally traveling to LA to produce another album for Maria Muldaur. This album had a duet with Maria and Stevie Wonder. "At the end of the recording session Stevie presented my son Ethan (then 2 years old) with his harmonica. In honor of this wonderful gift, for a time Ethan was referred to as 'Little Ethie Nichtern'." Fateful Fiddlin' In 1980, Nichtern moved back to NYC. While at Karme-Choling Nichtern met, meditated with, and played fiddle tunes with a fellow named Sidney Alsonso. Sid was busy developing a new electronic instrument known as the Synclavier Digital Music System -- the grandfather and forerunner of all digital work stations, synthesizers, samplers, and sequencers. "I took one look at the Synclavier and knew that the music production business was about to change forever." He decided to become involved with this digital "revolution" and helped market the Synclavier to colleagues in the record, tv and film industries. David became sales director for this new company (New England Digital) and presented this 'Rolls Royce' system to artists like Sting, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Mark Knopfler, and George Benson. Simultaneously, Nichtern continued developing his music career. He was Patti LuPone's musical director and his responsibilities included developing and arranging her club act. Nichtern also produced yet another album for Maria Muldaur, this time featuring piano giants Dr. John and Kenny Barron. He also helped write and arrange a track for Billy Crystal's comedy album --- a duet with Christopher Guest entitled I Hate When That Happens based on their Saturday Night Live sketch of the same name. During this period, Nichtern also did several TV scores (episodes of Trying Times and Faerytale Theatre), and various TV commercials, industrials, weddings and bar mitzvahs (just kidding at the end there!) One Life to Live In 1991, Nichtern contemplated moving back to LA. On a trip there he bumped into old friend and colleague Suzanne Ciani. Due to an uncanny series of coincidences, the two teamed up to compose the music for the ABC daytime classic One Life To Live (which took them both right back to NY). After six months, Ciani moved back to California to start her own record company, but Nichtern stayed on and has been writing and producing the music for OLTL to this very day. Nichtern has collaborated with several co-composers during his tenure at One Life to Live "including the great Lee Holdridge, with whom I co-wrote the show's new title theme." Some of the music for the show featured Nichtern's guitar playing and began to suggest a kind of sound which was 'pop-ish', instrumental and very evocative. Nichtern began working on a full-length album with this approach (which includes 5 songs originally written for OLTL) and gathered together some of his favorite musicians to record From Here to Nichternity. In addition to his composing, David is now playing in the New York area with his band 'Nichternity'. If you're in the area, check his performance schedule and come on in for a set or two!