Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon, born Frank Devera Jackson (March 3, 1896 or 1897 – May 15, 1953),Legal name and birth/death dates from headstone application as a military veteran, reproduced in Brian Berger
Frankie Jaxon
Hilobrow, 2013-02-03. Accessed 2013-02-10. Other sources state that he was born in 1895 and that he died in 1944;

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

gives a date of 1970. was an African American

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

singer, stage designer and comedian, popular in the 1920s and 1930s.

Life and career

He was born in

Montgomery, Alabama Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...

, orphaned, and raised in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

. His nickname of "Half Pint" referred to his 5'2" height. He started in show business around 1910 as a singer in Kansas City, before travelling extensively with

medicine show Medicine shows were touring acts (traveling by truck, horse, or wagon teams) that peddled "miracle cure" patent medicines and other products between various entertainments. They developed from European Charlatan, mountebank shows and were common i ...

s in Texas, and then touring the eastern seaboard. His feminine voice and outrageous manner, often as a

female impersonator A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have usually been gay men, and part of ...

, established him as a crowd favorite. By 1917 he had begun working regularly in Atlantic City, New Jersey and in Chicago, often with such performers as

Bessie Smith Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and ...

and

Ethel Waters Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her not ...

, whose staging he helped design. He served slightly less than a year in the United States Army in 1918–1919 and rose to the rank of sergeant. In the late 1920s he sang with top

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

bands when they passed through Chicago, working with

Bennie Moten Benjamin Moten (November 13, 1893 – April 2, 1935) was an American jazz pianist and band leader born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. He led his Kansas City Orchestra, the most important of the regional, blues-based orchest ...

King Oliver Joseph Nathan "King" Oliver (December 19, 1881 – April 8/10, 1938) was an American jazz cornet player and bandleader. He was particularly recognized for his playing style and his pioneering use of Mute (music), mutes in jazz. Also a notable c ...

Freddie Keppard Freddie Keppard (sometimes rendered as Freddy Keppard; February 27, 1890 – July 15, 1933) was an American jazz cornetist who once held the title of "King" in the New Orleans jazz scene. This title was previously held by Buddy Bolden and suc ...

and others. He performed and recorded with the pianists

Cow Cow Davenport Charles Edward "Cow Cow" Davenport (April 23, 1894 – December 3, 1955) was an American boogie-woogie and piano blues player as well as a vaudeville entertainer. He also played the organ and sang. Davenport, who also made recordings under the ...

Tampa Red Hudson Whittaker (born Hudson Woodbridge; January 8, 1903March 19, 1981), known as Tampa Red, was a Chicago blues musician. His distinctive single-string slide guitar style, songwriting and bottleneck technique influenced other Chicago blues gui ...

and "Georgia Tom" Dorsey, recording with the latter pair under the name of The Black Hillbillies. He also recorded with the

Harlem Hamfats The Harlem Hamfats was a Chicago jazz band formed in 1936. Initially, they mainly provided backup music for jazz and blues singers, such as Johnny Temple, Rosetta Howard, and Frankie Jaxon, for Decca Records. Their first record, "Oh! Red", be ...

. In the 1930s, he was often on radio in the Chicago area, and led his own band, titled Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon and His Quarts of Joy. Jaxon appeared with

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...

in a film short titled ''

Black and Tan A black and tan is a beer cocktail made by layering a pale beer (usually pale ale) and a dark beer (usually stout). In Ireland, the drink is called a half and half because in Ireland the term "''black and tan''" is considered to be offensive. ...

'' (1929), and with

in "

St. Louis Blues The St. Louis Blues are a professional ice hockey team based in St. Louis. The Blues compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Central Division in the Western Conference. The franchise was founded in 1967 as one of the s ...

" (1929).

Cab Calloway Cabell Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, conductor and dancer. He was associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he was a regular performer and became a popular vocalist ...

's "

Minnie the Moocher "Minnie the Moocher" is a jazz- scat song first recorded in 1931 by Cab Calloway and His Orchestra, selling over a million copies. "Minnie the Moocher" is most famous for its nonsensical ad libbed (" scat") lyrics (for example, "Hi De Hi De Hi ...

" (1931) is based both musically and lyrically on Jaxon's "

Willie the Weeper "Willie the Weeper" is a song about drug addiction. It is based on a standard vaudeville song, likely written in 1904. It is credited to Walter Melrose, Grant Rymal, Marty Bloom, who published it with Morris Edwin H & Co Inc in 1908. The first re ...

" (1927). In 1941 he retired from show business and worked at

The Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...

in Washington, D.C. He was transferred to Los Angeles. According to most sources, he died in the veterans hospital in 1944; Allmusic states he lived in Los Angeles until 1970. However, an application for a headstone as a military veteran, in the name of Frank Devera Jackson, has been suggested by writer Brian Berger as referring to him; it indicates that he died on May 15, 1953.

Song lyric

"If this song's too hot," sang Frankie Jaxon in "Fan It", "go out and buy yourself a five cent fan."

References

External links

More information
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jaxon, Frankie Half Pint 1890s births 1953 deaths American drag queens East Coast blues musicians American male comedians Musicians from Montgomery, Alabama Vocalion Records artists 20th-century American singers 20th-century American comedians 20th-century American male singers 20th-century LGBT people

Life and career

Song lyric

See also

References

External links