Panama's Story: My History as a Jazz Drummer

By David Albert Francis

INTRODUCTION
My name is David Albert Francis. However, I am known in the music world as “Panama” Francis, a
name that was given to me by Roy Eldridge when I joined his band in 1939. I was born in Miami, Florida,
on December 21, 1918, four days short of becoming a Christmas present to my parents.
I must tell you that I am a stutterer. Sometime, when I get excited or try to make a point, my voice
goes up about two octaves. I come across to some people as being angry but, believe me, this [what?] is
how I get the words to flow. My facial expression might appear to you to be an angry expression. What is
happening is that I am concentrating on getting the words to come out, without interruptions.
I am sick now from twenty years of life on the board, riding on a bus for hours on end, eating
unhealthy (and sometimes unsanitary?) food, and traveling 300 to 500 miles at a time without a bathroom
break. The current health of bodies of my fellow musicians and I bear witness to the pain and suffering
we experienced on the road. I am among many, many musicians who are paying now for these deplorable
conditions on the road. We have serious health ailments that are directly attributable to what we experienced
on the road and have negatively impacted the very days of our lives when we should be reaping the benefits
of our long years of hard work. We are paying the price.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483615578

David Albert Francis

David "Panama" Francis. Now Deceased, was a professional musician for over seventy years. He was also one of the most recorded jazz drummers of all time. Bob Reiser is an award-winning author and professional storyteller. Among his books are those written with Pete Seeger. Carry It On and Everybody Says Freedom. He lives in Tarrytown, New York. Eric Velasquez is an artist and jazz enthusiast. Among the picture books he has illustrated is The Piano Man, winner of the Coretta Scott King New Talent Award. He lives in Hartsdale. New York. MARSHALL CAVENDISH 99 White Plains Road Tarrytown New York 10591

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Copyright © 2013 by David Albert Francis. 550763

ISBN:   Softcover     978-1-4836-1556-1

             Ebook          978-1-4836-1557-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 09/28/2019

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PANAMA’S STORY

MY HISTORY AS A JAZZ DRUMMER

Chap. (1)     Miami

Chap. (2)     My Father And The Influence Of Marcus Garvey

Chap. (3)     My Mother

Chap. (4)     Early Days In Miami

Chap. (5)     The Cavaliers

Chap. (6)     Early Days In New York

Chap. (7)     Lucky And The Savoy

Chap. (8)     What Happened To Swing?

Chap. (9)     What Was Be-Bop All About?

Chap. (10)   My Own Band And Willie Bryant

Chap. (11)   Cab Calloway

Chap. (12)   Changing Times

Chap. (13)   Ray Conniff

Chap. (14)   The New Savoy Sultans

Chap. (15)   Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

My name is David Albert Francis. However, I am known in the music world as Panama Francis, a name that was given to me by Roy Eldridge when I joined his band in 1939. I was born in Miami, Florida, on December 21, 1918, four days short of becoming a Christmas present to my parents.

I must tell you that I am a stutterer. Sometime, when I get excited or try to make a point, my voice goes up about two octaves. I come across to some people as being angry but, believe me, this [what?] is how I get the words to flow. My facial expression might appear to you to be an angry expression. What is happening is that I am concentrating on getting the words to come out, without interruptions.

I am sick now from twenty years of life on the road, riding on a bus for hours on end, eating unhealthy (and sometimes unsanitary?) food, and traveling 300 to 500 miles at a time without a bathroom break. The current health of bodies of my fellow musicians and I bear witness to the pain and suffering we experienced on the road. I am among many, many musicians who are paying now for these deplorable conditions on the road. We have serious health ailments that are directly attributable to what we experienced on the road and have negatively impacted the very days of our lives when we should be reaping the benefits of our long years of hard work. We are paying the price.

CHAPTER 1

MIAMI

My home town is Miami, Florida the county seat of Dade County, and it was the playground of America, before Bugsy Siegel got the idea for Las Vegas. Being only 80 miles from Havana, Cuba, where anything went including gambling, people came from everywhere to visit Miami, before going to Havana to gamble. Miami had become one of the most segregated, anti-Semitic city in the South. There were signs at hotels and restaurants that Jews were not welcome, or allowed in the establishment. The Jews were not allowed any further than Collins Ave, on Miami Beach.

New Orleans was one of the few cosmopolitan cities in the south, and white people got the opportunity to cross into the black section of town at night. So this is where they caught up with what the black people were doing, but it was happening in Miami as well. But it happened that the white intellectuals heard this music, cause the only white kids that was trying to play this music at the time was the Italians. Jewish children wasn’t interested they wanted to play in the symphony, but the little Italians they didn’t have no money to start out with, and they liked this music that they heard and tried to play it. That’s how the Original Dixieland Jazz Band was born and the white intellectuals made the claim that this music was made in New Orleans. It was played in NY, it was played in some sections of Georgia, and I know for a fact, that it was played in many parts of Florida where all the same traditions existed. The same rituals, and traditions they had in New Orleans existed in Miami as the French brought their slaves from Haiti, and the masters wanted them to cook alike. They almost have the same accent when they talk, cause they’re from the Bahamas and the Caribbean, and so they all have the same type of traditions. When somebody dies they had the wake, and then the big procession the next morning, with the Fraternities, and the lodges. It was almost the same there weren’t no difference in what went on in New Orleans probably they might have learned some of it from N/O, cause N/O was older than Miami but it was the same tradition that went on in N/O that went on in Miami. People talk about the Storyville red-light district, or New Orleans but we had a red light district in Miami that we called the railroad front.

A young guy C.S. Belton out of Florida went north in the summer to Rochester, NY where he organized a band in 1918 when I was born. No one knows where the different styles of music came from like the guys in Kansas City played a certain style, but it was more of a big band whilst in New Orleans it tended to be smaller groups. Kansas City was a hub, just like the people travel with the railroad that’s the way they traveled to the different cities. Everybody from the east coast went to NY, the east coast of Georgia, the east coast of South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia they all went to NY. The ones from the western part went up to Detroit, and the ones from the other side of Mississippi like Louisiana went to Chicago and the ones out of, Texas went to Los/A, or Kansas City. Kansas City was a meat packing city, just like Chicago was a meat packing city.

There were very few places in the south were white people came across the tracks after dark very few in the south, so they didn’t know what was going on in the black neighborhoods in the cities. It was like that in other places. We played Augusta, Georgia where the white people were able to come over at night as spectators in the ‘30’s.

Down in Miami everything in the black neighborhood, including the theatres, and the ballrooms, were owned by blacks until Harlem Square came along. All the ballrooms were owned by black promoters, all the stores little mom, pop grocery stores, Jewish people owned the groceries stores until later when the Chinese came on and opened supermarkets, and put the small stores out of business. They were called Jo’s markets owned by Chinese.

There was no American in these bands until they started having house parties, and that’s where the American musicians came in. Guys from Georgia north Florida and places like that, and that’s where this man opened this nice ballroom they called it the Della Robia where they had the big dances but before that time they used to go to the Humdingers, that was a place where the fast life people went to dance, because the state of Florida in fact the people of Florida they loved to dance. We’d put a sign out which where the people going to work would see saying there was going to be a dance, or a party at such and such a place, and they’d be there. These same guys that played in the marching band were also the ones that played in the IN dance band, so if there was a dance that night which was a Monday night you’d see 5/6 of them playing for the dance. After a while a lot of the people worked in service, so they used to go north after the seasons whatever they called it, the season started in October and went on till March so they brought back almost everything that was happening up north, and one of things they brought back was the band, now there were like C.S. Belton and his society band for Florida they used to play at the Della Robia then they came to Miami, one thing they knew to do, this was in the 30’s, when they finished Booker T. Washington high school 1928 whatever band came out to play they also went to the school and played for the kids we use pay a nickel to go in and hear em. C.S Belton was like one of the main players.

George Kelly played for Mamie Smith when she came down to Miami, because her piano player left her. I don’t know how he played the blues, they must have had music as he was in short pants at the time. He played for Naomi Short Smith, all of them. All the big show came to Miami and there was the Lyric Theatre on Second Avenue the Whiteman sisters came to. All the big black shows that were travelling around came to Miami, there were Silus Green a Florida man, but the show was named Silus Green from New Orleans, and they had the dancing girls. But he was really from Florida.

Edmund Hall; he’s from Louisiana but he didn’t go to Chicago like Louis Armstrong. He came to Florida and he picked up Cootie Williams on the way to Mobile, Alabama. They came to Miami, and played for Chief Wilson at the Della Robia before he went to Jacksonville. Alonzo Ross was like the number one band Florida ‘cos they used to make it big in New York. However other bandleaders would steal the visiting musicians. Even like C.S Belton when he went North lost guys out of the band. That’s how a lot of them ended up staying in New York.

The Della Robia 2nd Avenue was a rocking place. There’s was the Rockland Palace Ballroom and then there was another that was opened by some black guys from the U.N.I.A called the Moabribi Garden, and then they sold it to somebody else, and it became the Tropical Garden, and then they sold it to this white fellow and it became Harlem Square. It was a big fancy ballroom, cause it was opened by Teddy Hills, and his band from New York. All the black use to go to dance either the Rockland Palace or Harlem Square.

Every city of any size had a band, like Alonzo Ross came out of Jacksonville, in fact his son is a drummer he’s out in Las Vegas now, and there was also the Golden