Fareed Simpson-Hankins – MileStone Happenings

Fareed Simpson-Hankins is a trumpet player, composer, educator, and bandleader from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Hankins loved music at a very young age. His parents are musicians who practiced at home and took him to their performances. Hankins first picked up the trumpet at eight years old. He learned more about music while playing spirituals and gospel at his home church and studying at the Mount Airy Cultural Center jazz program.

Hankins studied music at the Mount Airy Cultural Center jazz program and graduated from Central High School in the Logan section of Philadelphia.

He was inspired by jazz trumpet players like Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, and Louis Armstrong.

Hankins attended and studied music while a student at Central High School. Hankins was mentored by Byard Lancaster, who is widely known as an avant-garde jazz saxophonist and flutist.

After graduating from high school, he went to Temple University, where he had the opportunity to study with outstanding trumpet players and veteran jazz musicians.

Young and talented, Hankins started playing at local Philly venues with Developing Excellence, Inc., which uses drama and music to address community concerns and promote academic and creative excellence.

Hankins’s two most notable performances include the 2016 North Sea Jazz Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and the 2017 Jazz is Back Festival in Grožnjan, Croatia.

In 2019, he was featured on Constant Renaissance, a recording collaboration between the Temple Studio Orchestra and Vince Mendoza.  The recording was nominated for a GRAMMY.

In 2020, Hankins won an Outstanding Soloist Award from the Jack Rudin Jazz Championship. Later that year, he premiered a YouTube web series, The Second Line Bebop Series, showing the cultural jazz comparisons between Philadelphia and New Orleans. Click here to watch the latest episodes.

Hankins and his brother currently lead a quintet called Brothers.Ink. Their goal is to have an impactful career and join the long lineage of great trumpet players.

Learn more about Hankins and his work by visiting his website, www.fareedsimpson.com. You may also contact him by email at fareed@fareedsimpson.com. Follow him on Instagram @fareedsimpson.