Daniel Freedman is a lifelong New Yorker who attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts before studying at the Manhattan School of Music and Mannes College of Music. In high school he studied with Max Roach, whose own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile, Billy Higgins, whose own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile, Vernel Fournier, and Oscar Deric Brown, later traveling to study with master drummers in West Africa and Cuba.

His instincts led him from the fertile early-1990s scene at Smalls Jazz Club in New York City to the Broadway stage, performing as part of David Byrne's acclaimed American Utopia, as well as its Spike Lee-directed film version. He has performed and recorded with David Byrne, Angélique Kidjo, Anat Cohen, Avishai Cohen, Mulatu Astatke, and Lionel Loueke, and co-leads Third World Love, a culture-melding quartet with Avishai Cohen, Omer Avital, and Yonatan Avishai. His record Trio, with Jason Lindner and Omer Avital and guests Myron Walden, Joshua Levitt, and Tomer Tzur on the Fresh Sound label, received a nine-star review from Modern Drummer Magazine.

Freedman's early apprenticeship under Max Roach and Billy Higgins, deepened by direct study with master drummers in West Africa and Cuba, gave him a rare synthesis of American jazz drumming lineage and global percussion traditions, a combination that carried him from Smalls Jazz Club to the Broadway stage with David Byrne.