Edwin Gunther Schuller was born January 11, 1955, in New York City, the son of composer, horn player, and music professor Gunther Schuller, and elder brother of drummer George Schuller. He learned clarinet and guitar as a child, switching to double bass at fifteen, the same year he made his first professional appearances with Ricky Ford. He moved to Boston in 1967, studied at the New England Conservatory of Music under Jaki Byard, George Russell, Joe Maneri, Ran Blake, and Chuck Israels, and embarked on his first national tour at age twenty with guitarist Pat Martino. He returned to New York City in 1975.

Schuller has played with saxophonist Lee Konitz, whose own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile, as well as Joe Lovano, Ted Curson, Dave Liebman, Jimmy Knepper, Clark Terry, Ran Blake, Paul McCandless, Billy Hart, violist Mat Maneri, whose own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile, Marty Ehrlich, and Roland Hanna. He has taught at the Newark Academy and Berklee College of Music, and headed the jazz department at the Schweitzer Institute of Music in Idaho from 1988.

One of the international jazz scene's most respected bassists, Schuller has more than sixty sideman recordings to his credit.

Schuller's grounding in the New England Conservatory's genre-crossing curriculum under Jaki Byard, George Russell, and Joe Maneri, combined with a family lineage running through his father Gunther Schuller's own foundational role in jazz composition and Third Stream music, made him one of the most versatile bassists to emerge from the Boston-New York jazz corridor.