'Fresh Brewed Music' comes to coffee bean and tea leaf: sales of CDs at stores follow in the footsteps of Starbucks.

THE java and jive wave is spreading.

International Coffee & Tea LLC's Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf coffee houses have kicked off in-store CD sales. Two years ago, behemoth competitor Starbucks started doing the same and saw wildly successful results.

To differentiate itself, and to further promote the program, the Los Angeles company has just launched "Fresh Brewed Music," a series of in-store concerts in the works for its Southern California locations.

The series, with future dates still in the works, opened with a free concert two weeks ago. The show featured MoZella, a new artist from Detroit, and was promoted heavily on local Clear Channel radio station KYSR-FM (98.7), which also partnered with the chain for the concert. It was hosted by station DJ Richard Blade and drew a capacity crowd.

The CDs of John Mayer and other featured artists are now being sold at nearly all Coffee Bean locations through a distribution deal with music and entertainment branding firm Inspire Entertainment LLC, which counts Whole Foods Market Inc. and Claire's Stores Inc. accessory shops among its clients.

"Like Starbucks, the Coffee Bean is using music to emotionally fortify its brand and create a new revenue stream with in-store sales, and the results have been tremendously successful," said James Dunne, Inspire's founder. "It doesn't cannibalize sales in traditional retailers like Wal-Mart or music stores. The history is a good one--a number of companies have been doing this for years; Victoria's Secret has sold about 18 million classical music CDs in their stores, for example."