Snapping ‘Trav’lin’ At Seven Angels Seduces With Catchy Melodies

“Trav’lin — The 1930s Harlem Musical” brings back the spirit of the Jazz Age, good and bad. It tells you “Get Up and Follow Your Feet” but also sings the blues.

“Trav’lin”‘s lightweight romantic plot — three tenuous romantic relationships awaiting their inevitable happy endings — is as flimsy as many actual 1930s musicals, the type that get rewritten when they’re revived because the books are so thin.

But the predictable romantic dramas are not what will draw you to this amiable new musical, which Seven Angels Theatre is giving a New England premiere through June 11. “Trav’lin” is scored with songs by the largely forgotten, underrated composer J.C. (or “Jay Cee”) Johnson. The show includes one of Johnson’s most-covered compositions, “Empty Bed Blues.” The rest come as welcome new discoveries. (“Trav’lin” completely avoids “The Joint is Jumpin’,” a song Johnson wrote with Fats Waller that is already safely ensconced in another musical, “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”)

The songs are delivered by a lively six-person cast and a snappy-hat-wearing four-piece jazz band. The choreography involves strutting, variations on the Charleston and Black Bottom, and a lot of bent knees and elbows. The second act opens with a tremendous full-cast workout on a number called “The Monster.” These peppy pop songs weren’t written for a show (though Johnson did have a hand in a musical or two back in the day). The lyrics often carry the plot, however: “Somebody Loses, Somebody Wins”; “You Better Finish What You Started With Me”; “You’ll Come Back to Me” and the beautifully titled “Vampin’ a Coed.”

The catchy, upbeat melodies, with their Harlem Renaissance authenticity, drive a show that is still in need of some script revisions and better staging concepts. Too many of the scenes are staged on just half of the stage.

The three different love stories all involve men who’ve gravely disappointed the women who love them. Old sexist stereotypes guide too much of the action. Some fine talents, including Lothair Eaton (a veteran of nearly 3,000 performances of “Starlight Express” in four countries), Teren Carter (who played Delray in “Memphis the Musical” at Ivoryton Playhouse two years ago) and the marvelous Miche Braden (who brought her hit New York show about Bessie Smith, “The Devil’s Music,” to Seven Angels in 2010) can really put these numbers over, even if they can’t quite sell the plot.

The story behind “Trav’lin” is at least as interesting as anything in the show.

“J.C. Johnson was my mentor and best buddy,” says Gary Holmes, who conceived “Trav’lin” and co-wrote its book with Allan Shapiro. Holmes tells the story in a phone chat from the Catskills region of New York, where he’s lived most of his life and where he first met Johnson.

“I met him when I was 10 and he was in his 70s, through my father, who was a banker. I had just started taking piano lessons, and my father said ‘Here’s a professional piano player.’ He had moved from Harlem to the Catskills, and had a band that was made up of other Harlem musicians. People like Alberta Hunter and Eubie Blake would come visit, and jam with him.

“Jay was very laid back. A quiet person. I asked hundreds of questions about people he worked with, but I had to pull the answers out of him.”

“‘Trav’lin’ took the shape it did, Holmes says, because “Jay, when I was talking to him about ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’,’ told me he liked revues but really liked shows that told a story. So I found three stories we could tell, based on people Jay knew, and wove them through each other. Of course they had to be set in Harlem.”

The character of Roz in the show, Holmes says, “is based on Rose Morgan, who became the most successful hairdresser in Harlem, but started with a one-chair salon. Rose Morgan was married to Joe Louis, the prizefighter. A little bit of Roz’s boyfriend Archie is based on him, but Archie is not a prizefighter — he’s a numbers runner.”

When Johnson died in 1981, Holmes told his widow Julie Johnson Nash (who herself died just last month at the age of 80) about his idea for a show. She gave him access to all Johnson’s songs. “Basically, then, life got in the way,” Holmes abbreviates.

It was decades before he could work on the project in earnest. Development since then has been rapid. Since 2009, “Trav’lin” has now had three staged readings and three full productions. The Seven Angels rendition, Holmes says, involves virtually the entire production team who did the show at the New York Musical Theatre Festival in 2010, including director/choreographer Paul Stancato and Music Director/Arranger John DiPinto.

Gary Holmes has two other J.C. Johnson-based projects currently in the works. One is a cabaret revue, the other a musical “based on an incident in Jay’s life,” Johnson’s number one fan explains. “The main thing for me is getting Jay’s stuff out there.”

“Trav’lin — The 1930s Harlem Musical” jives and struts through June 11 at Seven Angels Theatre, 1 Plank Road, Waterbury. Performances are Thursday and Friday at 8 pm., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., with an added Thursday matinee June 1 at 2 p.m. $39.50-$54. 203-757-4676, sevenangelstheatre.org.