Born in Crete, he lives in St Etienne. He learned to play the accordion under his father's direction and pursued his musical education at the St Etienne conservatory, then at the National conservatory in Lyons, where he won a gold medal by a unanimous vote. He concurrently studied the piano, and his interest for singing led him to join the class of Ms. Nicolas and then the class of Evelyne Brunner. The outcome of all this was numerous concerts where he sang various parts, in "Dialogue des Carmélites", "Cosi Fan Tutte" and "Madame Butterfly" among others. He has recently sung and played the accordion opposite Mina Agossi in "Porgy and Bess" at Opera de Lyon and in Verdi's "Aïda" at La Fabrique of the Grenoble Opera. A generous musician, he is not bound to one genre but equally in love with jazz, Italian folk songs and opera. With Trio Barolo he has found an equilibrium between his beautiful voice and his virtuosity and the accordion.

Trombonist in Claude Nougaro's last band, then Manu Dibango's and Tony Allen's, co-leader with Thomas De Pourquery of a jazz band that became more rock-oriented from 1997 to 2014, founder of a trio with Manu Codjia and Vincent Peirani in the 2000s, first prize winner in the soloist category at the La Défense Competition in 2002, Daniel Zimmermann was the first trombonist to be nominated for the Victoires du Jazz awards in 2014 following the release of “Bone Machine.” This was followed by hundreds of concerts with this project and subsequent ones: in 2016, Montagnes Russes, which won numerous awards from the specialist press, then the more experimental Dichotomie's (2019), with original instrumentation, which also enjoyed critical acclaim. At the same time, he has continued to perform and record with a multitude of artists, such as Archie Shepp, George Russell, Wynton Marsalis, the Orchestre National de Jazz, Andy Emler, Michel Legrand, Éric Seva, Pourquery & Supersonic, Andreas Schaerer, Nguyen Lê, Christophe Monniot, Karim Ziad, Jacques Vidal, Thierry Maillard, Sophie Hunger, Bernard Lavilliers, Jacques Higelin, Aznavour, with Sacre du Tympan, Surnatural Orchestra, Ping Machine, Metronomy, and since 2020 with Trio Barolo.

A self taught bass player, the shock of hearing Jaco Pastorius play made him undertake a solid study of classic bass. He acquired a varied musical experience with the orchestra of Limoges, the Paris Opera orchestra, l'Orchestre Lamoureux, by taking part in recordings of film music; he worked with Jean Claude Vannier, went on tour with Jane Birkin, played with the late Jérôme Savary company for five years, during which he participated in the creation of "Cabaret". He was, with François Arnold, Tiboum Guignon, Manu Codjia and François Thuillier a co-founder and member of Collectif Nco in 1993, he founded "La cave à jazz" in Alba la Romaine which later became Smac 07. He teaches jazz at the Saint Etienne conservatory. In 2007, he worked with Alain Reynaud and Les Nouveaux Nez, the company of clowns, at the creation of "Le jazz fait son cirque", a show which played almost a hundred and fifty times over four years, and he founded the Barolo trio, with Fransesco Castellani and Eric Longworth and then Rémi Poulakis.