Donald Edwards

Donald Edwards is a drummer and composer steeped in the Louisiana jazz tradition who has become one of the busiest sidemen in straight-ahead jazz, including a longstanding chair in the Mingus Big Band. Raised in Opelousas, Louisiana, in a musical family, he began playing at eleven and studied at Southern University in Baton Rouge under the saxophonist and educator Alvin Batiste. In 1994 he received the Louisiana Arts Ambassador's Award for music composition, by which point he was among the most in-demand drummers on the Baton Rouge and New Orleans scenes. He has performed and recorded with Freddie Hubbard, Tom Harrell, Donald Harrison, Branford and Wynton Marsalis, Kurt Elling, Dave Holland, and Orrin Evans, and has led four albums of his own, including two for the Criss Cross label.