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Saxdragon, I thought your email was the sign of a true musician. You have obviously reached a level of playing that is good but you are looking to make yourself better. You're right, jazz is a different animal. Although many tunes can be played by ear, in order to really be a proficient jazz musician you must learn how to play changes. When you perform the blues is it by ear or do think in terms of the chords? Playing by ear is a good skill to have but as you learned sometimes you get caught. One of the things I also admired about your story was that you had the humility to hear that you weren't "nailing" the changes on "Respect". That's the first step to learning changes. That may sound basic but you'd be surprised how many players I encounter that don't hear it when they play a note that clashes with the chord. My friend Brian and I used to call it "Shuckin' and Jivin'." You'll hear a player sound great as long as it stays in a certain key area but the minute that changes shift to something different you hear some scrambling. You have two issues at hand. The first is learning about chord progressions. Most jazz tunes have similarities in their progressions so if you learn these cliches then you build a foundation of knowledge that you can apply to most jazz standards. David Baker wrote a good book- I think it's called "How to Learn Changes". He basically took 20 jazz standards and broke them apart from a theory perspective. Then he explains the several aspects that each tune has in common with other jazz standards. That book you could get in the Aebersold catalog. But you don't need to buy a book you could learn these things on your own. The second aspect of playing jazz would be the language. This can only be learned by studying solos of jazz musicians. This is the same for the blues. I am more of a Staight Ahead Jazz player. If I sit in with a good blues band I can't play my usual stuff. It is inappropriate because it is a different language. Not better or worse just a different language. So you may want to consider studying a few bebop solos to start to develop a jazz vocabulary. Do you have a fake book with some jazz standards in it? I can help you with some of this stuff online.