Am I ready for jazz lessons?

[Al Haig]

2nd you should be good to go where you are. But yes it's good to have a knowledge base beforehand to better take advantage of lessons, but it's not required. If you're plateau-ing during lessons from needing more time and work, you can always just go on hiatus and retain the knowledge while you put in more time/work.

[AllanAllen]

I hear ya. Learning tunes and being musical was implied. With my previous lessons years ago, the teacher might say "play a m7 chord", and I knew a couple of shapes for that. Now, I know about 25 ways to play a m7 chord. My thinking is that the more of the "basics" I know, the faster and better I'll be able to learn and play tunes. You said that you "frittered" away time with that stuff, but I'm sure it helped you. I hear people say that they don't "think" about the technical aspects when they play, but that's because they've internalized their knowledge.

I know 25 ways to play a minor chord and I use two. Sometimes I use the two shapes for a major chord inversion. I think the key is fewer options used broader.

Jazz is about playing music, not how many chords you know.

[AllanAllen]

Anyway, What jazz songs do you like? What jazz musicians do you like, what albums?

If you can’t answer this you’re doomed.