Donald Walden grew up in Clarksville (Tennessee) and from 1946 in Detroit ; As a youth he played saxophone. He attended the Larry Teal School of Music and the Detroit Community Music School ; With Barry Harris and Yusef Lateef, he studied improvisation. In 1960, he moved to New York City , playing with Grant Green , Joe Chambers , Booker Ervin, and Sun Ra . After returning to Detroit in 1966, he worked with local musicians and played for five years in the band of Aretha Franklin ; He also toured with Stevie Wonder ,
In the following years, he taught in public schools and regularly took part in the New World Stage, in the Harmonie Park District of Detroit, which he founded . In 1990, he performed with a Charlie Parker tribute at the Detroit International Jazz Festival with a big band and a choir; Soloists at this Yardbird Suite were alongside Walden Dizzy Gillespie , Charles McPherson and Barry Harris. This resulted in his Repertoireband Detroit Jazz Orchestra . In the 1990s, he taught at Michigan State University , At the Oberlin College in Ohio and finally at the University of Michigan , where he was appointed professor. His pupils included Rodney Whitaker , Geri Allen , Robert Hurst and Regina Carter . Under his own name, he presented several self-produced albums, including two tribute albums on Thelonious Monk , Charles Mingus, and Tadd Dameron . He recently directed the Ensemble Free Radicals with Cassius Richmond and Marion Hayden . In 2006 he appeared as a guest musician with Geri Allen's album Timeless Portraits and Dreams .
Walden was awarded the Michigan Governor's Arts Award in 1985 for his work with the Detroit Jazz Orchestra; In 1996, he received the honorary title Jazz Arts Midwest.
He died on April 6, 2008 at the age of 69.