Under any other name, she’s still Norah Jones

Guitarist-songwriter Peter Malick was looking for a singer to fill out his band back in 2000 when he wandered into New York’s Living Room club and heard the voice he wanted. He approached the singer and invited her to join his group, and in the next few months they performed and recorded together for what was planned to be an album.

Then the singer got an offer for a solo recording contract from Blue Note Records and took it, leaving the project not quite finished.

The singer was Norah Jones, and now the songs are being released on July 8 by KOCH Records on “New York City,” an EP credited to the Peter Malick Group featuring Norah Jones.

When artists hit it big, it’s common for their old recordings to surface -- sometimes even demos they may have made before signing a record deal. In fact, a Blue Note executive recently dismissed these sessions as demos. But Malick wants to dispel any notion that they are anything less than full productions that were intended for release.

“We were making a record,” says the veteran guitarist, who spent years playing with such blues artists as John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Muddy Waters and Otis Spann before shifting his focus to songwriting in the late ‘90s.

“Shortly after that, Norah told me she was signing with Blue Note Records,” says the 51-year-old musician. “She totally supported me putting it out as long as it was billed ‘Peter Malick featuring Norah Jones.’ It was originally going to be a full-length album, but it got derailed.”

Jones signed contracts at the time giving Malick rights to the recordings, and he tried to arrange for a release well before she became a household name. and Grammy queen. But he lacked the contacts and resources to put the recordings out until about a year ago, when, understandably, he found interest growing. Despite his claim of support from Jones, he then got a notice from her management trying to stop the release.

Malick and KOCH asserted their right to put the music out, and Blue Note executives have said that while they would prefer it wasn’t released, they cannot stop it. Jones’ representatives said that neither she nor her management will comment on the situation.

The music is certainly nothing for Jones to be ashamed of. With five songs written by Malick and a version of Bob Dylan’s 1981 song “Heart of Mine,” it shows Jones in a slightly different light from that of her hit “Come Away With Me” album -- bluesier and less mannered, more growl in her voice, closer perhaps to Bonnie Raitt or Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins, with Malick’s economical guitar rather than Jones’ piano shaping the songs.

Malick, who has lived in Los Angeles since 1991, is working on new material for an album that will feature several singers. . He says any boost he might get from releasing the Jones material is welcome, though he has never seen it as a cash-in move.

“My whole desire in life is to be a working musician, and whatever route that takes will be fine with me,” he says. “I want to write and produce, that’s basically the whole story. That’s my only agenda.”

Chris Patyk, music director and assistant program director of L.A. “adult alternative” radio station KYSR-FM (98.7), says that anything from Jones will be of interest to his audience.

“It’s definitely worth checking out,” says Patyk, who has not heard the Malick recordings. “She’s been the highlight story of the last year for music. I don’t think it would be something we’d put into regular rotation, but for our specialty new-music program it would be good.... She’s a major story and you want to cover it from all angles.”

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Six decades of Christmas spirit

The Blind Boys of Alabama have been singing praise to Jesus for 60 years as a leading gospel group. But they’d never done it in the form of a Christmas album.

Until now. Coming off gospel Grammys for their last two albums, 2001’s “Spirit of the Century” and 2002’s “Higher Ground,” the group -- which is performing at the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl this weekend -- is finishing “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” due Sept. 6 from Real World Records. The collection of seasonal standards, not all of them strictly gospel, will feature the Blind Boys with guests including Tom Waits (the title song), Chrissie Hynde (“In the Bleak Midwinter,” with Richard Thompson on guitar), Aaron Neville (“Joy to the World”) and Spearhead’s Michael Franti (“Little Drummer Boy”).

Also featured are Solomon Burke, Mavis Staples, George Clinton and Les McCann, with organist John Medeski and guitarist Duke Robillard leading the backup band. John Chelew produced, as he did the previous two albums.

“”We’ve done a couple of Christmas tunes before for a compilation CD, but not a whole album,” says Clarence Fountain, 72, who co-founded the group when he was 12 at the Talladega Institute for the Deaf and Blind. “It occurred to us, but we just never took the time to do it. The record company asked for it, and when somebody wants something and puts up the money, you do it.”

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Small faces

* The Isley Brothers, fresh off the recent No. 1 chart debut for the album “Body Kiss,” are working with Burt Bacharach on an album of standards to be released this year by DreamWorks Records. Bacharach has just produced the group’s sessions at Capitol Records’ Hollywood studios. The Isleys also plan to do tracks with R. Kelly and veteran Philadelphia producer Thom Bell.

* The three founding members of the Mavericks -- Raul Malo, Robert Reynolds and Paul Deakin -- have reunited for their first studio album since 1998’s “Trampoline.” Willie Nelson guests on one song, with the album -- due in September from Sanctuary Records -- said to have a lot of ‘60s pop influences along the lines of the Beatles and the Tijuana Brass.

* Palermo, Sicily, will be the site next week for a “groupie conference,” spurred by a new book called “Groupies” and including a scholarly panel at Palermo University. Among the attendees will be Pamela Des Barres (author of the definitive memoir “I’m With the Band”) and Cynthia Plaster Caster. Des Barres’ book, meanwhile, has just been republished in the U.K., and development for a film project is continuing.