Bindman began the violin at five, at ten switched to alto sax, then played drums. Early on he listened to "Hot Clarinets", a record giving to him by his grandmother, and John Coltrane's albums "Traneing In" and "Crescent", and the musicians he saw perform in his hometown of Englewood, NJ, including Dizzy Gillespie. As a high school student living in Vermont, Bindman began improvising and composing, forming an ensemble with drummer Ben Wittman and pianist Jim Sugarman. He studied with saxophonist Stephen Horenstein, and was invited by trumpeters Arthur Brooks and Bill Dixon to take part in their classes and ensembles at Bennington College. Attending college at Wesleyan University in the early 1980's, Bindman studied with saxophonist Bill Barron and trombonist Bill Lowe, and with master artists in Wesleyan's World Music Department. He joined Talking Drums, led by Ghanaian master drummers Abraham Adzinyah and Freeman Donkor, and, in 1987, toured the United States and recorded Some Day Catch Some Day Down (Shanachie). With Bill Lowe, bassist Wes Brown, and drummer royal hartigan, Bindman was part of the collaborative ensemble JUBA.
Living in New York since 1987, Bindman has been involved with numerous projects, ensembles, collaborative work, and recordings. Collaborations with Tyrone Henderson have included multimedia works that combine spoken words with musical scores, and visuals by Quimetta Perle, including "The Madman" and "Strawman Dance", with performances at Performance Space 122, the Nuyorican Poets Café, and the Green Room, Manchester, UK. The CD Strawman Dance (Konnex, 1994) was described by Andy Bartlett in Cadence Magazine as "truly a merging of wide sounds...tuneful to the last" and was a Cadence Magazine Editors Choice in 1994. In 1997, Bindman formed his trio with Kevin Norton and Joe Fonda. Of their CD Imaginings (CIMP), Modern Drummer's Ted Bonar writes "Bindman, Fonda and Norton ... are great at finding a musical moment, attacking it, and pulverizing the traditional grooves into tiny glass shards, having plenty of space to do so in this trio setting." Bindman continues to collaborate with Wes Brown and royal hartigan, recording BloodDrumSpirit (Innova) under Hartigan's leadership, performing in the USA and China, and developing work that incorporates South Indian Solkattu, Javanese Gamelan, and West African rhythms.
In 1995 Bindman co-founded the Brooklyn Sax Quartet with Fred Ho. In 2001, the BSQ released The Way of the Saxophone (Innova). Jazz Times' Reuben Jackson writes of the BSQ "...like the stitch work of a master tailor, the lines between improv and composition are wonderfully blurred". Derek Taylor calls the quartet's music "...dynamically devised group saxophone creations by a foursome of reed titans". Steve Loewy writes that Bindman's pieces "reflect a cool, complex, and visionary model of artistic endeavor" (All Music Guide). Of Far Side of Here (Omnitone, 2005), "[T]his compact, direct and passionate playing portrays a keen cultural affinity to which we all hope to achieve" (Dennis Hollingsworth, Jazz Improv Magazine). Fred Bouchard writes that "[I]nspired writing fuels the group...co-founder David Bindman pens a virtuosic turn on Dizzy Gillespies 'A Night In Tunisia', lightning variations on 'Spinning' and reggae asides on 'Jajo' "(Downbeat). In 2003 Bindman's arrangement of Hector Berlioz's "Romeo and Juliet" was performed live on WNYC's Soundcheck, and at Joe's Pub. The BSQ traveled to the western USA and Canada three times since 2002. The BSQ has been described as "a powerful and worldly ensemble" (Nate Chinen, New York Times).
Bindman was born in 1963 in New York City. He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1985 and received an MA in World Music from Wesleyan in 1987. He has received grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council, the Queens Council on the Arts, the Puffin Foundation, Meet The Composer, and The Aaron Copland Fund for Music Performing Ensembles. He has taught in the New York City school system, at the Consortium for Worker Education, Bennington College, LaGuardia Community College, and The New School, and has conducted master classes across the USA and in Canada. He lives in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.