NEW RELEASES / JAZZ : In Brief

** Sid Jacobs, “It’s Not Goodnight,” Best. The debut album by this guitarist--one of the Southland’s lesser-known but highly skilled mainstream jazz players--is filled with soaring improvisations that recall, in their better moments, the sound and sometimes the substance of Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass. But Jacobs pushes himself too hard by overloading his program with nine not particularly distinguished originals--a mistake best illustrated by the fact that his most attractive playing is on the record’s only standard, “I Thought About You.”

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