Jumped so high, then he lightly touched down

“OK, ladies, let’s do ‘Vaudeville.’ ”

The women of the chorus, a young and shapely bunch, obligingly assume a variety of frisky poses. As the piano picks up the beat, they bump and grind their way through the burlesque number -- after cooing over “little Sammy Davis,” the precocious kid who’s playing the circuit when he should be in school.

“I would never have it that good again,” sighs the grown-up Davis (Obba Babatunde). “The tragedy was that it had to happen when I was 6!”

He rolls his eyes and flashes that familiar crooked smile. Rimshot, please.

“Sammy” -- Leslie Bricusse’s new musical about his old pal Sammy Davis Jr. -- is full of comic bits and pretty girls as well as dramatic highs (Davis’ rise from Harlem to superstardom) and lows (battles against bigotry and nasty inner demons) and lots of singing and dancing.

In other words, says Bricusse, it’s the kind of show Sammy would put on if he were doing “Sammy.”

Indeed, while Davis is no longer with us, his spirit seems to inhabit every part of this production, which will premiere Friday at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego.

In the rehearsal room, his portrait is propped on a table facing the actors. In the hallways, his name keeps popping up (“Sammy used to say . . .”) in conversations where people talk as if they know him.

Some did -- including not just Bricusse but also music supervisor Ian Fraser and Babatunde, who considers him his mentor. Others have been longtime fans. Director Keith Glover used the Davis hit “The Candy Man” as his audition song. Choreographer Keith Young owns two dogs: Sammy and Davis.

On this overcast morning, Glover and the company are fine-tuning material with Bricusse, who has flown in from Europe, where he lives much of the year. The Oscar- and Grammy-winning songwriter has brought the latest in a series of revisions. This being a new work, every line and measure is subject to second thought.

After “Vaudeville,” the action shifts to an Army base in the 1940s, where Pvt. Sammy Davis Jr. wows a talent show with a big-band version of “Gonna Build a Mountain.” When he finishes, Davis is ambushed by a bunch of rednecks, who pummel and taunt him -- until Glover interrupts. The fight scene needs work.

Once the changes are made, Babatunde begins a sad yet defiant reprise:

Gonna build a mountain -- ,

gonna build it high!

I don’t know how I’m gonna do it --

only know I’m gonna try.

The room grows quiet. Compact and nimble, Babatunde evokes Sammy’s presence whenever he takes the stage. He can swing and sing the blues, tap, flirt and clown -- which comes in handy since he performs in 19 of the musical’s two dozen numbers.

It’s a “packed” show, acknowledges Bricusse, one that may get tightened during and after this run. (There are no plans for “Sammy” beyond San Diego; however, Bricusse hopes it will find a new life in, say, London.) Most of the songs are original; 10 were written earlier -- mainly by Bricusse and Anthony Newley -- and are used “in a different context than before,” says Bricusse, who created “Sammy’s” music, lyrics and book.

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Eventful life

“Sammy” zigzags through the 64 years of Davis’ life, focusing on the ‘50s and ‘60s, when he was a star of stage, screen and the club scene and a member of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack. Bricusse touches on some of his friend’s troubles as well: the car accident that costs him an eye, the controversies sparked by his interracial romances and conversion to Judaism, and his self-destructive recklessness with money, drugs and women. The show ends on a high note. Before he dies of throat cancer in 1990, Davis is honored as a civil rights champion and philanthropist as well as the consummate entertainer.

To some, says Glover, “Sammy is a mythic hero.” To others, “he’s a crazy cat who wore lots of gold chains.” Either way, the director says, “we make this a voyage of self-discovery rather than a ‘me telling you about my life’ thing. As he goes along, Sammy discovers stuff he may not have known when the evening began. We hope the audience will too.”

Bricusse, 78, met Davis in 1961 when Davis came to London for a theater gig and happened to see “Stop the World -- I Want to Get Off,” the first musical written by Bricusse and fellow Englishman Newley.

“We became instant friends,” Bricusse says. “We went out every night. It was probably the happiest time of his life. He had just married May Britt, the Swedish actress, and he found in London the unprejudiced reception he never had in America.”

Since then, Bricusse has created music for more than 40 shows and films, ranging from “Doctor Dolittle” to “Victor/Victoria.” Davis recorded 60 of Bricusse’s songs, including “What Kind of Fool Am I?” and “The Candy Man,” co-written by Newley. He also appeared in a revival of “Stop the World” in the late ‘70s. Bricusse says he and his wife, Evie, saw Davis perform “hundreds of times all over the planet.”

After Davis died, Bricusse put together a songbook that contained tributes from friends such as Sinatra, Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson, whose life -- Bricusse notes -- ended up bearing many similarities to Davis’.

Jones told Bricusse he should turn the songbook into a show. Bricusse did.

Last winter, Bricusse and Lou Spisto, the Old Globe’s executive producer, discussed potential projects. “I liked ‘Sammy’ because here was this unusual talent who led an unusual life,” Spisto says, “the kind of life that supports a stage musical. Also, musicals are about music, and this music is great.”

Once Bricusse found a theater, the next challenge was finding a star. “A lot of names came up, but Obba’s was the first I had written down,” he says. “He is the blueprint because he is the direct link to Sammy.”

Babatunde, who says he is in his 50s, is a Broadway and Hollywood veteran who was nominated for a 1982 Tony for “Dreamgirls.” He met Davis in 1978 in Lake Tahoe, where Babatunde was appearing with Liza Minnelli. “Sammy would follow us on tour, opening after we closed, so I got to learn a lot from him.”

Knowing the person you are portraying is a mixed blessing, says Babatunde, who calls his performance “an incarnation and not an impersonation.” He finds it hard, for instance, to sing Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Mr. Bojangles,” the tale of a washed-up hoofer. “First, it was done to perfection by the man himself. But also I know Sammy feared that his life would end up like the man he sung about.”

The sharing of such insights has given Babatunde’s colleagues a better sense of who Davis was. “A lot of videos are being passed around, and Sammy stories are being told,” says Glover. “One of the girls sent out YouTube links. Everybody was in the vibe once they got a chance.”

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Orchestra rehearsal

It’s a gorgeous September afternoon. A perfect day for the “sitzprobe” -- the cast’s first opportunity to sing with the orchestra. For this $2.5-million production, the Globe has secured a 13-piece ensemble, which is large for a regional theater. Everyone is giddy.

“Please, no chatter,” Fraser admonishes from the podium. Fraser, an 11-time Emmy winner, has worked with Bricusse for half a century and first worked with Davis in 1961. He guides the company through number after number, swaying with the beat even as he maintains order.

Tony winner Ann Duquesnay, who plays Davis’ grandmother, raises the roof with a solo. Adam James croons a la Sinatra. After each song, everyone whoops and claps, except for Bricusse. Sitting with his wife and Spisto, he keeps scribbling notes. Only for the last few tunes -- old favorites -- does he put away his pen. He wraps his arm around Evie as they listen to Babatunde sing “The Good Things in Life.”

But I raise my glass

to the good things in life.

I am not here for long,

but there’s time for a song

and some wine.

And when time runs away,

I will look back and say

that the good things in life

were all mine . . .

Whenever she hears “I raise my glass,” Evie Bricusse lifts her hand in an imaginary toast. Afterward, she explains this was something “we always did when Sammy sang.”

“It’s just like old times,” she says.

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