Dr. Hackett’s career has been quite diverse, backing up artists such as Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole, Frankie Valli, and Perry Como as well as performing in regularly in jazz clubs such as Birdland, Swing 46, and Blues Alley while living in New York City and Washington, DC.  His playing has been featured in national television and radio commercials, and many commercially available recordings, including those with Scott Whitfield’s Jazz Orchestra East, and with The Buselli/Wallarab Jazz Orchestra. While in North Carolina he was an active performer in the region maintaining membership in the Piedmont/Triad Jazz Orchestra and the North Carolina Brass Band.

 Michael Hackett’s first solo recording entitled “Circles” was released on the Summit Records label in 2005. In 2013, Summit Records released his most recent recording entitled “New Point of View.” A third recording, “Western Skies,” with a sexted co-led by trombonist Tim Coffman, was released by Summit Records in Spring/Summer of 2022.

From 2008 to 2014, Dr. Hackett was on the faculty of the Yellowstone Jazz Camp and has also served on the faculties of the Ohio State University Jazz Camp and the Jazz Arts Charlotte Summer Jazz Camp.

Dr. Hackett received his DM in Brass Pedagogy from the prestigious Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and well as a BM and MM in Jazz studies from the same. His principle teachers include trumpet studies with William Adam, Joey Tartell, John Rommel, and Ed Cord, and jazz studies with David Baker. He has previously been on faculty at Butler University, The Ohio State University, Indiana State University, and University of North Carolina at Charlotte.