Panama Francis
1977

"When I was with Cab’s band we were the first black band to play in a white club in Miami Florida. We played the Clover Club on Biscayne Boulevard and North East Second Avenue. When Cab told me we were going to play there I got so nervous that I went out and bought a pistol."

By Gabe Villani

I started writing this article a long time ago, in 1977 to be exact. Some how the tapes of the interview were lost because I changed jobs and moved to Puerto Rico for a few years. I recently found the tapes and after listening to them again I felt that the contribution by Panama Francis on the music and drumming world had to be told.

During this article I promise you that you will learn fantastic facts about Dizzy Gillespie, Tommy Dorsey and other musicians. Just to wet your appetite, let me tell you that Panama Francis was the first drummer to use the triplet back beat, 12/8, feeling on a recording. The Discography of this man is remarkable. He has been on almost every HIT recording made during the 50’s and 60’s. He crossed over recording with the “black” artists like The Platters to “white” and “grey” artist like Paul Anka and Ray Coniff. He even was the drummer on the Mitch Miller hits of that era. For anyone that was around the New York recording scene in those years, you have to marvel at a “Black Jazz Drummer” breaking into that cliche. It only proves that Panama had to be an extraordinary person, drummer and businessman to achieve that goal.

During his years in the studios Panama appeared on almost every hit recording. The diversity of his talents included recordings from "These Things Remind Me Of You" with Della Reese, "Fools Rush In" with Brooks Benton, "Hallelujah I Love Her So" with Ray Charles, "Earth Angel" with the penguins, "Peggy Sue" with Buddy Holly and he even was the drummer on "The Colonel Bogey March" recorded by Mitch Miller.

In addition, Panama recorded over 100 albums. He did five Broadway shows including “The Fantasticks”. He played on three golden albums with Mitch Miller and Ray Conniff and did the Jackie Gleason, Mitch Miller and the Ed Sullivan TV Shows. He also played in the movies, “Rock Around The Clock”, “The Learning Tree” and “The Lady Sings The Blues”.

In addition to this fantastic list Panama also achieved the following credits. From 1946 through 1969 he played with Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, The Cadillac Industrial Shows and was the personal drummer for Dinah Shore. From 1970 through this interview, which was in 1977, he toured with The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, recorded in LA studios, played the Newport/Nice France Jazz Festivals and played on the New York Jazz Repertory Company recordings made in Europe. He also Toured England and Japan with the Ray Conniff Orchestra. He even did clubdates with Lester Lanin. Let me start from the beginning and tell you about this incredible “drummer” person.

Panama was born in Miami Florida, December 21, 1918. His father was Haitian and his mother was Bahamian. He played in the school band and started playing professionally at the age of 14. He played with a lot of local “Territory Black Bands”. These were the types of bands that Charlie Parker, Lester Young and most young black musicians started out with. The Florida bands had names like “George Kelly Cavaliers” and “Florida Collegians”. Local black businessmen owned most of these bands and the nightclubs they played in.

PF: In those days, (early 1930’s), you learned a lot by watching the big name bands come through town. The local bands were the intermission bands I learned to play the “foot” cymbal in 1934. The foot cymbal was the Hi Hat on the floor. A lot of the traveling bands learned a lot from us. There was a band called “The West Palm Beach Syncopated Sunset Royals”, in 1933 Tommy Dorsey took their arrangement of “Marie” and “Who” note for note, except for a trumpet solo. In those days I also got a lot of respect for upright pianos. I played a lot of rough clubs. When the shooting started that’s where we hid, behind the upright piano.

GV: Panama, what was the turning point in making you leave Florida?

PF: After a while the local bands weren’t playing a lot. I was only doing 2 nights a week with the Florida Collegians in Tampa. I wrote my Father in New York who sent me the bus ticket to New York. I arrived in New York Tuesday morning August 9th, 1938.

GV: How do you remember that date?

PF: I’m a drummer. You have to have a good memory. I can remember arrangements that I played 20 years ago. I couldn’t read back then but I can remember arrangements that I played in 1932. When I got to New York, I started jamming. In those days every Bar had a combo. Sometimes it was only a piano and a drummer. There were sessions every night somewhere. That’s when the Union stopped Jam Sessions. But they made a mistake by not having a place for musicians to play any time during the day or night if they wanted to. That’s where you learned your craft. You really learned to play at the Jam sessions. I got a start in New York playing in a club called the Victoria on 142nd Street and 7th Avenue. The drummer, Freddie Moore, let me sit in a lot. I even jumped on Cozy Cole one night when he came in the club. When you’re young, you’re cocky and I was cocky. I finally got a gig with “Billy Hicks and his Sizzling 6”. That’s where the first time I played in a show. I played a production show at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem but then I couldn’t read any music.

GV: How did you do that?

PF: I had a great memory that I could hear anything once and I could remember it. Now that I can read I’m handicapped. I don’t rely on my memory. Tom Wheler was the arranger for the show. He was also Duke Ellington’s copyist throughout the years. When I told Tom that I couldn’t read he couldn’t believe it. I told him that when the band would be rehearsing something I would drop a stick and listen to what they were doing. He said, “well I’ll be damned. If you’ve got that much nerve I’m going to help you But remember, if you don’t know where the tempo is don’t hit the bass drum. The down beat is always on your cymbal, then listen who’s got the lead and that’s where the tempo is.”

GV: That’s incredible.

PF: That’s how I learned to play shows. I played shows all those years and never learned to read. From 1940 to 1946 I was with Lucky Millinder. We made a lot of records and I couldn’t read a note.

GV: In 1946 you were in Cab Calloway’s band. During that time was Dizzy with the band?

PF: No, I played with Dizzy in Lucky’s band. That’s after he got fired from Cab’s band in 1942. We had an arrangement on a tune called “Shipyard Social Function” and you’ll hear “Salt Peanuts” in the background. Dizzy made that up for the background of a Tenor Solo. It’s on the recording.

GV: Who was in Cab Calloway’s band during your time?

PF: Jonah Jones, Milt Hilton, Sam the Man Taylor and Bud Johnson. When I was with Cab’s band we were the first black band to play in a white club in Miami Florida. We played the Clover Club on Biscayne Boulevard and North East Second Avenue. When Cab told me we were going to play there I got so nervous that I went out and bought a pistol. I was going to protect myself.

GV: What year was this?

PF: In 1949.

GV: Miami was strange for a long time after that. I played in a Miami black club in 1959, the Jim Jam club. It was owned by Cab Calloway’s sister, Blanch. We still had a lot of trouble then. We had a mixed band. We were harassed by the white police not by the blacks. I think through out the music world, white musicians were always treated with respect in the black communities but it wasn’t true the other way around. Anyway, Panama, didn’t you have your own band for a while?

PF: Yeah, I had my own band at the Savoy Ballroom for 3 months but I couldn’t find a backer. I lost a lot of money. My first wife reminded me of the $2,500 I lost every time we got into an argument. That was lot money back then.

GV: Then you went with Duke Ellington?

PF: I only stayed a week. I couldn’t feel comfortable with that band. Clark Terry was the only one who made me feel welcomed.

GV: You were replaced by Dave Black?

PF: That’s right.

GV: After Duke you went into the studios. How did you break into the studios? In those days, studios were very closed and cliquish.

PF: Rock & Roll was just coming up and Atlantic Records was just starting out in a loft at 54th Street and 8th avenue. They started recording “RHYTHM &BLUES”. Joe Marshall, who was the original drummer with them couldn’t make a date and they got me. Some time later I did a date with Sam The Man Taylor, I still wasn’t reading. Leroy Holmes wrote a part for the drummer to lay out and I played right through it. He turned to the contractor and said, “Where did you get this drummer from?” I felt like going through he floor. I finished the date but it was a long time before I was called again by Leroy Holmes. That next day I started lessons with Freddie Albright. I learned to read in four months. He showed me how to subdivide the music. Later, I also studied percussion with Phil Kraus.

GV: You did 15 years of studio work (1953-1968) and played on almost every hit recording during that time. You started out with Atlantic Records but you wound up playing for every major recording studio.

PF: That’s right.

GV: That was my time in New York. I remember all the Jazz things that were going on like “Monday Drum Night” at Birdland. Max Roach, Charli Persip, Elvin Jones, Sonny Payne and all these players made those gigs. I never saw you at any of those things or at any of the Jazz clubs around town.

PF: I was never invited to any of those things. I was never considered one of the boys.

GV: Is that what it was?

PF: I was considered an out sider.

GV: But for a musician in those days, you were doing good financially.

PF: I had a fire in 1954 that burned over 3000 78rpm records. I listened to everything. That’s why I could play on those records. I was making a nice living.

GV: What amazes me is that you went from Rhythm & Blues to recording for artist like Bobby Darin and that you were recording all the “white” hits. I hate to use the terms “white” and “Black”.

PF: But that’s the way it was. We live in a racist country. I got into it because a lot of guys couldn’t play it. I started the triplets at that time. I also started the 12/8 feel on the record by Screaming with Jay Hawkins called “I Put A Spell On You”. That’s the first time that rhythm was ever used.

GV: As a jazz musician I ask you what it was like for you to go into a studio with a Neil Sedeca or Bobby Darin as a total stranger with all those old studio musicians who all knew each other? They were pretty clannish.

PF: You see, Rock & Roll was just coming into its own and a lot of studio drummers couldn’t play it. I was put down by the Jazz guys and by the studio drummers too. It didn’t bother me at all. There was a lot of crap. I even had a few producers write in percussion parts to get other drummers on the record dates so they could watch what I was doing. They even had the nerve to ask me to show them what I was doing. I wasn’t that stupid.

GV: Did you know Gary Chester?

PF: Yes, he’s the guy that moved me out. He was a good politician. Listen, I put two kids through college. I owned my own home and I had a good bank account. You know I also played Birdland with Charlie Parker and Slim Gaillard in 1953 but I was never in the Jazz click.

GV: Jazz drummers were dying to get into the studios.

PF: I know. I had a lot of money. Some of them couldn’t get grits for their children. What happened to me paid off in the end because the Jazz guys hardly got paid for their records. The young people know about Max Roach and Art Blakley through their records but they hardly got paid in those days. You know, the kids know them but they don’t know Panama Francis and I did all those hits.

GV: I know that Jazz drummers like Charli Persip started getting into the studios in the late 50’s. I guess you paved the way by letting them know that Jazz drummers could play commercial music?

PF: I opened the door for a lot of the black guys because I didn’t show up drunk or late. I was always on time and I was always business.

GV: Where did the name Panama come from?

PF: Roy Eldridge gave me that name when I joined his band. He was big time. We use to broadcast 3 times a week from the Arcadia Ballroom. I joined him on July 8, 1939. At a rehearsal, I had on a Panama Hat, Roy whose middle name was also David like mine couldn’t remember my name and said, “ hey Panama!”. The guy in the band thought that was my name and I was too scared to tell them that it wasn’t and the name stuck.

GV: How did you do in California?

PF: I didn’t do well. I left Dinah Shore to stay in LA. It was a big mistake. Dinah was the nicest person I ever worked for. There was never a place that she stayed or was invited to that I wasn’t invited with her. She insisted on that.

California was more cliquish. Everyone was running around scared. I was doing the dates that nobody else wanted to do. I did a few movies because I had some friends but I couldn’t get on so I left and went back to New York.

GV: You are on your way to the Newport “Nice” France Festival?

PF: Yes, I am leaving next week. I got a leave of absence from this job to make the trip. People in Europe have a lot more respect for Jazz musicians. Over there we are considered Artists and we are well respected.

GV: How did you wind up in Orlando?

PF: I was coming down from New York to buy a house in Miami. I stopped in Orlando to see Harry Wuest who is the bandleader of the “Top of the World” room in the Contemporary Hotel at Disneyland.

GV: That’s a good room and a good band.

PF: He asked me to do the job and I said yes. I started New Years Eve. I’m happy there. Maybe one day I’ll have my own band again. That’s my dream.

GV: Panama, what is your best memory so far of your musical career?

PF: Playing with Cab Calloway’s band. They use to feature me all the time. That was the end of the interview but there are a few things that I need to add. Panama played against Buddy Rich in a battle of the bands between Tommy Dorsey’s band and the Luck Millinder Orchestra in 1942 at the Savoy Ballroom. Buddy did the solo on “Not So Quiet Please” and blew everyone away. Panama said that Buddy’s solo “un-nerved” him so much. One of Panama’s dreams was to do a second battle of the bands but only this time his band against Buddy Rich’s band. It never happened and it never will.

The most disturbing fact to me is that with all Panama's accomplishments, he was never recognized by the musicians or the public in the way he deserved. He was never in a Jazz Poll. Ironically, Panama was never asked to do drum clinics or play at University Jazz programs. He was never endorsed by any drum company. Even though he used Ludwigs for years and knew the Ludwig family. The only thing they ever offered him was a small discount, one time, and gave him a free pair of drumsticks. They also gave him a lot of free catalogs so he could buy more drums. He was very bitter about that. For a man who contributed so much to the business he was shortchanged by the industry and the public. I hope this article brings him some of the recognition he deserves.