The vault is open for the Monterey Jazz Festival

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Festivals are ripe venues for live recordings. Cases in point: Norman Granz's full slate of albums recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1977 and 1979 for his Pablo label, and Verve's series of Charlie Haden concerts at the 1989 Montreal Jazz Festival.

But in a recording industry first, the Monterey Jazz Festival in California -- the setting of such classics as John Handy's "Live at Monterey" (1965) and Charles Lloyd's "Forest Flower" (1966) -- has fashioned itself a label as well as a marquee event. For starters, the festival is excavating its 1,600-hour tape archives housed at Stanford University's Braun Music Center to release historic live concerts. To complement the old, Monterey Jazz Festival Records (MJFR) will also record new festival-spawned projects.

Under the ever-expanding Concord Music Group umbrella, MJFR will roll out its debut five-CD batch July 31: Louis Armstrong & His All-Stars (recorded in '58), Miles Davis Quintet ('63), Thelonious Monk Quartet ('64),

Shirley Horn Trio and George Washington Jr. (both in '94). More archival CDs will street in late summer in time to help Monterey, the world's oldest, continuously running jazz festival, celebrate its silver anniversary (September 21-23).

"We'll have a captive crowd, in the best sense of the word, for selling these CDs," Monterey GM Tim Jackson says, adding that the festival has an annual attendance of 45,000. "Three years ago we started thinking about how to celebrate the 50th as well as leverage the festival's assets and brand, not just for a one-time event, but for something that could be ongoing."

The archives that document most of the artists who played the main stage were largely inaccessible except to researchers. Plus, the tapes were deteriorating, a problem rectified recently by a digitizing project partially funded by the Grammy Foundation. "Once we realized what we had," Jackson says, "we wanted to get it out to the public."

Monterey never intended to jump-start a label on its own. "We know how to produce a jazz festival, but not sell records," Jackson says. Concord was approached because it's based on the West Coast and "because they're a very progressive label," he adds.

Jackson broached the topic with Concord president/CEO Glen Barros while they served on the Jazz Alliance International board. "Concord's philosophy is to give consumers infinite choices," Barros says. "If we do our job right, we'll make Monterey, which has a hip factor, known around the globe. This imprint gives us a new opportunity to make jazz work in this changing industry."

Jason Olaine, director of A&R at Verve from 1999 to 2004, is GM of MJFR. He calls the shots on the historic releases as well as special projects to be recorded at the festival each year. "We don't want to get stuck in a '50-'60s time warp," he says. "We want to show that jazz is also a music of the present."

For this year's fest, Olaine assembled a supergroup of Dave Holland, Gonzalo Rubalcaba,

Chris Potter and Eric Harland, whose performances will be issued by MJFR. Another unique ensemble -- including Benny Green, Terence Blanchard, James Moody and

Nnenna Freelon -- will also be documented for a MJFR CD to be sold on its 50-date national tour of 1,000- to 2,000-seat venues from January to March 2008.

"At 50, we figure it's good to pause and reflect back," Jackson says, noting that the imprint breaks the mold with its variegated potential revenue streams. "But we also want to creatively contribute to the jazz future."

Reuters/Billboard