A Stellar Birthday Celebration for 50 Years of Verve : Jazz: The record label will mark its anniversary with a star-studded gala Wednesday at Carnegie Hall.

When Verve Records marks its 50th anniversary on Wednesday night with a star-studded concert at Carnegie Hall hosted by Herbie Hancock and Vanessa Williams, it will have plenty to celebrate.

The label has produced its share of jazz landmarks over the years. Among them:

* Ella Fitzgerald singing the songbooks of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, the Gershwins and others;

* Saxophonist Stan Getz and Brazilian guitarist-vocalist Joao Gilberto’s “Getz/Gilberto” which introduced America to the bossa nova via a little ditty entitled “The Girl From Ipanema.”

And while Verve may not have had the cutting-edge statements from the music’s innovators--Miles, Coltrane or Ornette Coleman--during its half-century in business, it has produced some of the most recognized and commercially successful albums in jazz.

That success continues into the ‘90s as Verve resurrects the recording careers of such respected artists as vocalists Betty Carter and Abbey Lincoln, saxophonist Joe Henderson and trombonist J.J. Johnson.

Many of those artists let out to pasture by other labels will appear in Wednesday’s Carnegie Hall gala, including pianist Hank Jones, saxophonist Henderson, trombonist Johnson, bassist Charlie Haden and vocalists Carter and Lincoln, as well as new Verve signee Hancock (the concert is scheduled for a May 18 broadcast on PBS stations as part of the network’s “Great Performances” series).

In addition, the label has released a bevy of reissues to commemorate the anniversary, including a four-CD set of the label’s greatest moments entitled “The Verve Story (1944-1994),” a 16-CD set of the Fitzgerald songbooks, and a CD compilation dubbed “Verve Grammy Winners.”

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Since its birth in 1944, when jazz impresario Norman Granz organized and recorded his first Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) concert held at Los Angeles’ Philharmonic Hall (the performance space at 5th and Olive streets was replaced by the Music Center in 1964 and finally razed in 1985), the label has had a reputation of combining musicians of stellar quality in ways designed to heighten their commercial appeal. The name “Verve” didn’t appear until 1956 when Granz combined his existent independent production companies, Clef, Norgran and Down Home, under the Verve moniker.

Granz, who now lives in Switzerland, sold the Verve catalogue to MGM in 1960, after signing and recording such important musicians as Getz, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, saxophonists Charlie Parker and Ben Webster and vocalist Billie Holiday. Producer Creed Taylor took over in 1961, releasing some of the label’s best-known, as well as most commercial, recordings during his six years at the helm.

The label was eventually sold to Polygram in 1972 and began to concentrate on reissues. New recordings were held in abeyance until 1987, when Shirley Horn recorded a live session for Verve at Hollywood’s Vine St. Bar & Grill. Since then, the label has picked up a host of major names while adding a contemporary division, Verve Forecast, for fusion-oriented acts.

Verve’s reputation continues to rest with established talent. Among the current middle-generation of jazz musicians on the Verve roster are some of the genre’s most-honored names: saxophonist Henderson (who won Grammys this year for best instrumental solo and best instrumental performance), vocalist Horn (nominated for best jazz vocal performance in 1993) and pianist Kenny Barron (nominated for best jazz instrumental performance in 1993).

The recording careers of all three languished at times before they signed with Verve, though all three were respected by the jazz community at large.

“I’m breathlessly aware of the success they’ve had with Joe Henderson,” says producer Orrin Keepnews, who recorded Henderson for the Milestone label during one of his less visible periods in the 1970s.

“They seem to have pushed the right buttons in selling his records. What they’ve done with artists who should be established with the public is commendable. Still, it might be nice if Verve were to show more daring and experimentation in what they produce. But I think that what they’ve accomplished with Joe is much more important than discovering six new teen-age jazz musicians.”

Indeed, Verve has largely bucked the trend among jazz labels of signing and recording the new, younger generation of musicians, a practice that blossomed after Columbia signed trumpet wunderkind Wynton Marsalis in 1981.

“We’ve been fortunate in what we’ve been able to accomplish with musicians well-known in the jazz community, but barely known to the public at large,” says Verve vice president Richard Seidel, who produced Henderson’s current album. “We’ve been able to figure out a way to record the artists so that they would get noticed, unlike some of their previous associations (with other labels) where they just got lost. And we have the marketing resources to get their names out there.”

Marketing, Seidel admits, plays as large a role in an album’s success as does the musician who makes it, and the company goes out of its way to combine distinguished musicians, as it has on the new release from Lincoln and Jones, or to give its recordings a theme, as on Henderson’s Miles Davis (“So Near, So Far”) and Billy Strayhorn (“Lush Life”) homages.

Despite its success with older players, Verve hasn’t forsaken jazz’s youth movement. “We’ve been trying to adjust the balance between younger musicians and the veterans,” says Seidel. The recent signing of 24-year-old trumpet sensation Roy Hargrove, along with recent signees bassist Christian McBride, trumpeter Nicolas Payton and pianist Stephen Scott, he says, are evidence that the label has found a place for emerging talent as well.