Volume two in the complete recordings of
Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon contains all of the titles he is known to have cut between July 1929 and July 1937. During this period,
Jaxon crossed over from the Vocalion label to Decca, working with a diverse range of musicians that included the Cotton Top Mountain Sanctified Singers, (a traditional-sounding choir who backed him on several spirituals) and cornetist
Punch Miller & His Delegates of Pleasure. Most of these records were issued under the headings of
Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon and either his
Hot Shots or his
Quarts of Joy.
Half Pint's jumpin' little bands included trumpeters Bob Schoffner and
George Mitchell; trombonist Preston Jackson, and Cassino Simpson, a skilled pianist who made his best recordings with
Jabbo Smith and ultimately ended up in a mental institution after trying to murder
Half Pint, whose androgyny and well-known theatrical knack for female impersonation might well have driven Simpson over the edge. For awhile,
Jaxon was accompanied by one of Chicago's hottest little bands, misleadingly billed as the
Harlem Hamfats. With "No Need Knockin' on the Blind," the focus of the
Half Pint Jaxon story has moved from his longtime stomping grounds in Chicago to the swinging environment in New York, where he was accompanied by a band that included clarinetist
Buster Bailey, a mainstay in the
Fletcher Henderson Orchestra who was on the verge of leading his own
Rhythm Busters and would soon be prominently featured in the
John Kirby Sextet. Maximum enjoyment is to be found in rambunctious performances like "Down Home in Kentucky," the spunky "Fifteen Cents,"
Half Pint's theme song "Fan It," and a very theatrical "Mortgage Blues" which begins with a brusque and spirited reference to Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and spokesman for the Back to Africa Movement.
Frankie Jaxon's gleefully outspoken pride in being a person of color was chiseled in high relief with the title "Chocolate to the Bone (I'm So Glad I'm Brownskin)," and he was fond of injecting little Black Nationalist references that probably got by any Caucasians but without a doubt resonated among his predominately African-American audience. His introduction to "Down Home in Kentucky," for example, describes a segregated social environment where "Mr. Charlie is still in the lead." ~ arwulf arwulf