- Inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997.
- Jazz cornetist.
- Jackie Gleason and His Orchestra in the 1950s and 1960s featured him. He and Gleason both appeared in Orchestra Wives (1942).
- Was featured at various times in the bands of Glenn Miller (on guitar, as well as cornet), Benny Goodman (including at the famous Carnegie Hall concert), the Casa Loma Orchestra and Horace Heidt. From 1936, also occasionally led several short-lived combos and big bands.
- Spent his last two decades touring the U.S. and Europe, on club dates and festivals, and, finally, leading a combo at Cape Cod in the 1970's.
- Was plagued for many years by ill health brought on by frequent drinking bouts..
- Hackett was a Freemason and was active with St. Cecile Lodge #568, a lodge specifically for musicians and artists.
- Hackett was a featured soloist on some of the Jackie Gleason mood music albums during the 1950s.
- He made his name as a follower of cornet player Bix Beiderbecke.
- He was an American jazz musician who played trumpet, cornet, and guitar with the bands of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
- Benny Goodman hired the talented 23 year old to recreate Bix's "I'm Coming Virginia" solo at his (Goodman's) 1938 Carnegie Hall concert.
- Despite lip problems, Hackett could play occasional short solos, and he can be heard playing with the Glenn Miller Orchestra on "A String of Pearls". Hackett referred to this solo as 'just a little exercise'.
- His profile increased after he was hired by Jackie Gleason as a cornet soloist, for seven of Gleason's mood music albums. Beginning in 1952, he appeared on Gleason's first Capitol Records album, Music for Lovers Only. The record - as well as all of Gleason's next 10 albums - went gold. He appeared on six more of Gleason's albums. This association led directly to his signing with Capitol Records and performing trumpet and flugelhorn solos on several popular albums, including the best selling concept albums of Frank Sinatra.
- To make matters worse, his lip was in bad shape after dental surgery, making it difficult for him to play the trumpet or cornet. Glenn Miller offered him a job as a guitarist. "When I joined the band and I was making good money at last, but he told: "jazz critics accused me of selling out. Hell I wasn't selling out, I was selling in! It's funny, isn't it, how you go right into the wastebasket with some critics the minute you become successful.".
- At an early age he played the ukulele and by the time he was twelve played guitar and violin, and had bought his first cornet.
- In the early 1970s, he performed separately with Dizzy Gillespie and Teresa Brewer.
- Hackett received compensation of between $30 to $40 thousand for six albums for Gleason.
- Bobby Hackett married Edna Lillian Lee Hackett (d. 2000) in 1937. The Hacketts lived primarily in New York City and spent summers on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. They had a daughter, Barbara (d. 2003); and a son, Ernie, who became a professional drummer.
- In the early seventies, Bobby traveled to Japan with George Wein and Dizzy Gillespie, and made another visit to Europe.
- Mosaic Records released The Complete Capitol Bobby Hackett Solo Sessions on a five-CD limited edition set.
- Bobby Hackett also influenced Miles Davis.
- In 2012, Hackett was selected to be inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame.
- In 1939, the talent agency MCA asked Bobby Hackett to form a big band with its backing. When the band failed, he was in substantial debt to MCA after it folded. He joined the bands of Horace Heidt and then Glenn Miller to pay this debt.
- In the fall of 1970, while visiting Cape Cod, Bobby sat in with Ronnie Bill's dixieland band at the Holiday Inn, Hyannis.
- In 1954, he appeared as a regular on the ABC variety show The Martha Wright Show, also known as The Packard Showroom.
- In the late 1930s, Hackett played lead trumpet in the Vic Schoen Orchestra which backed the Andrews Sisters.
- In 1965, he toured with the singer Tony Bennett. In 1966 and 1967, he accompanied Bennett on two European tours.
- Hackett can be heard on the soundtrack to the 1940 Fred Astaire movie, Second Chorus.
- In 1959, he sponsored an advertisement of a 1963 Getzen's B-flat slide trumpet which is now held in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
- A dream come true for Hackett was his inclusion in Louis Armstrong's 1947 Town Hall Jazz Concert.
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