It may be a jazz world, but it looks like it's going to be a Blues Alley universe -- Blues Alley clubs everywhere, Blues Alley CDs and videos, a Blues Alley clothing collection, and even a Blues Alley crystal decanter. Washington's well-known jazz club -- which attracts legendary jazz performers such as Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Byrd and Wynton Marsalis -- has signed a $57 million licensing agreement with a group of Japanese investors to open three clubs next year in Japan, according to Blues Alley owner John T. Bunyan. And other deals with investors in the United States, Germany and Spain are in the works to capitalize on the popular supper club's name and knack for booking jazz greats, said Bunyan, who is lining up investors for a $3.5 million Blues Alley Investment Limited Partnership. The investment group seems to be following the grace notes of another successful music club franchise, the Hard Rock Cafe, which is set to open a branch here tomorrow, by emphasizing franchises and a popular line of logoed retail goods. The 18-year-old Hard Rock, founded in London and a specialist in American food and rock-and-roll, now has 16 cafes. It makes more than 40 percent of its current revenues from retail sales, and has sold 22 million T-shirts. Blues Alley's Washington club, which features two or three shows into the night, is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its founding by clarinetist Tommy Gwaltney. Bunyan bought Blues Alley in 1973, and its popularity has grown so much in the intervening years that Gillespie once proclaimed, "Now THIS is a jazz club!" Even the alley in Georgetown where it is located is named after the club. Bunyan also runs a club in Baltimore, a production/recording company, two music groups and the Blues Alley Music Society, a nonprofit organization that matches young musicians with headliners. Bunyan's deal with Naritaka Mouri, a Japanese businessman and real estate investor who owns the Tokuyama Country Club in Japan, calls for opening clubs in Tokyo in June, in Yokohama in September and Kyoto in December. The newly incorporated company, Blues Alley Japan, is hoping that each club there will gross $15 million annually and net $3 million from Japan's jazz-loving public. "There are hundreds of thousands of die-hard jazz fans in Japan and they've got lots to spend on entertainment," said Bunyan, who owns 50 percent of the Japanese partnership. "And we're happy to export what they want ... for a change." The deal was born of a Japanese television ad for All Nippon Airways, which filmed Washington landmarks for a commercial shown in Japan about its Tokyo-to-Washington flights. Pictured along with the Washington Monument was Blues Alley, which is well-known among Japanese tourists; Bunyan estimated that 10 percent to 15 percent of the 75,000 patrons yearly at the small club here are Japanese. The Japanese clubs will have 250 seats, almost double the size of Washington's cozy club, and state-of-the-art electronic equipment. "There are high expenses in setting up in Japan," said Bunyan, "but we wanted to do this right." The Japanese owners also have rights to open clubs throughout the Pacific Rim in Hawaii, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, and clubs are expected there in 1991. All will carry the Blues Alley name and logo. Jazz music booking and programming -- and later rock, pop, bluegrass and country -- will be directed from Washington, and under another $1 million deal with the Japanese, Bunyan will produce CDs and videos, called "Live at Blues Alley," for distribution in Japan and worldwide. Thirty-nine shows are planned, to be taped at the Baltimore club, which is used as a video studio. Also in the works are instructional videos featuring jazzmen like Marsalis and drummer Louis Belson. The Japanese-American investment group also will manufacture and market a line of denim wear, T-shirts, jackets and other items such as glass decanters that could be lucrative if Blues Alley attains worldwide recognition. In another venture, Bunyan is seeking about 70 limited partners to pony up $50,000 each for the Blues Alley Investment Limited Partnership, which will have an interest in the Washington club and clubs scheduled to open in New Orleans and Chicago in 1990, and licensing rights to the Blues Alley concept and business plan throughout the world, except for parts of the Pacific involved in the Japanese deal. Bunyan said he is talking with a German law firm that wants to open clubs in Hamburg, Munich and Berlin, and a Spanish department store that wants them in Barcelona, Malaga and Majorca. "We're even thinking of Moscow and Leningrad, considering the current climate there and their well-known love of jazz," Bunyan said. "You have to make sure your concept is firm or it's suicide," said Robert Earl, president of America's Hard Rock Cafe Inc., based in Orlando, Fla., about the chances for Blues Alley to make a worldwide splash. "People have to love you and want you near them." Bunyan is not worried. "Blues Alley is upscale and quality entertainment all the way," he said, noting his entire staff will travel from here to Japan for two weeks in January to advise and counsel. "Besides, this deal is strong," he said. "The Japanese pay in advance."