NEW RELEASES : In Brief

* * * Larry Goldings, “The Intimacy of the Blues,” Verve. Twenty-three-year-old organist Goldings has listened carefully to predecessors Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff and Shirley Scott. His debut album is a splendid collection of straight-down-the-middle, hard-grooving jazz highlighted by such unexpected items as “Skylark” and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly.” Goldings is particularly abetted by Bill Stewart’s superbly articulate drumming and Peter Bernstein’s blues-drenched guitar.

New albums are rated on a scale o one star (poor) to four (excellent). A rating of five stars is reserved for classic reissues or retrospectives.