Bob Ackerman  started playing piano at age nine, followed shortly by alto sax, clarinet, flute, and tenor Sax, the latter being his current main sax. In a telephone interview from his Irvington, New  Jersey, home, he told me, “I was always interested  in the saxophone and often would get to hear  people like Coleman Hawkins at the Metropole in New York.” However, he was only twelve and couldn’t actually go into the pub. “My aunt, who was a Jazz fan, used to take me to theater and vaudeville matinees, where some of the big bands of the day used to play. That was in the late forties, and I heard Ellington, Basie, and Woody  Herman. When the musicians would take a break at the Metropole, they’d come out onto the street and talk  with us kids. Coleman Hawkins told me where to go for the best information on saxophones: Forty-eighth Street, which was known as Saxophone Heaven in those days because all the stores there related to saxes. It was a different kind of community back then; everybody had their own special little niche just like the musicians; there was a lot of personality.”

Once he knew he wanted to make music for a living, Ackerman acquired a teaching degree in music, majoring in flute and minoring in piano and going on to coach budding young musicians for the next ten years. some weekend work with Jimmy Dorsey’s band and got to play once with Claude Thornhill.”

Bob Ackerman is very well known in the saxophone world, since he is both a collector of rare instruments and a repair specialist. “I have a workshop and music studio in my home,” Ackerman  explained, “where we make mouthpieces and fix instruments. In the studio, there’s a huge Steinway grand piano and other equipment, so we can play any time of the day. I try to make that a part of the business as much as possible. If a young person needs to decide on an instrument, the best way is by playing.”

Ackerman is extremely passionate about the saxophone. He tells the story that when he was a kid, he bought Doing All Right by Dexter  Gordon with Al Harewood, Horace Parlan. “I played with him for one night, when I was working the Catskills. The sound of  the saxophone on that recording is my favorite. I actually used that exact equipment, the mouthpiece and model of horn that Dexter played then.  That’s one of the things I do in my business. I hook all these elements together for people in order for them to have a complete instrument, that really reflects who they are as a musician.” Ackerman is a true original.