Need help with structured learning

[Ivan2794]

Hi everyone
I'm learning jazz guitar since 2 years more or less. I have the feeling to plateau...

I sometimes play in jam session (swing/gypsy/new orleans). I always have the same feeling, I don't know a lot of tunes and I really often rely on the sheet, I'm hardly able to improvise without reading the chords at the same time, even in tunes I know well.
I also "know" some concepts about sub, scales etc. but my choruses always end sounding basics.

I feel that a great thing could be to have more structure when learning; something that tell me "this week we focus on this song, this concept, etc". I don't find a teacher that have this kind of structure.

I saw the books Bebop improv serie by Richie Zellon that seems more structures.
I started to work on Herb Ellis Books. The book on Rhythm changes gave me some great licks, and the fact of just trying to memorize licks helped me hearing the harmony better.
Maybe I need to work on the other books of this serie.

So maybe keep going with Herb Ellis and working on learning more tunes ...

I'm a bit lost and frustrated

[GuyBoden]

Listen to the great Jazz recordings you love.

Sing along to the Jazz recordings you love.

Slow these Jazz recordings down and copy the phrases you like.

Play the phrases in the 6 common Jazz keys, D-G-C-F-Bb-Eb

Play the phrases as improv in all the songs you know.

Listen to more great Jazz recordings.

Just my humble opinion.

[Jimmy blue note]

Spend SERIOUS time training your ear, knowing the fingerboard the way your ear knows notes and hearing the structure and form in EVERYTHING you listen to.
Improvising is not just learning someone else's patterns as the substance of your improvisation but rather the possibilities of what you can choose to play.
You'll hear a lot of "Learn Charlie Parker" and yeah that's great advice but there's an extremely rich well of inspiration in learning to love Miles Davis, Lester Young, Lee Knonitz.
Do serious ear training, especially if it seems hard. You won't appreciate how powerful this is until you've mastered it. There are online ear training sites that are free and drill you on knowing your intervals. This will help you learn tunes.

Learn notes and melodies Up and Down the strings. Guy, great advice on learning and singing tunes. Take a tune, learn it a phrase at a time, identifying where the root note of each phrase is and how the scale and chord works with it. Pay attention to what you're playing, the melodies by intervals. It might be hard, but this work is really important.

At first, your foundational work will require slow patient work but you're learning to compose melodies.
Learn new tunes. Obsessively. It gets easier each time you do a new tune.
Listen to different people play the same tune.
Live with it and learn phrases one at a time and take phrases and loop them, then play within that loop.
Make sure actually playing a tune is a part of EVERY practice session and listen to yourself, your timing, where your attention falters, where your time falls apart, when you don't swing, where and when you lose your place and make a big picture.

Yeah watching videos is good but in your practice time, YOU are your teacher. YOU hear what needs to be worked on. YOU know when you're "not getting it". Listen to good masters and try really hard to understand what choices they make to play the solos you hear.
Don't zombie practice. Strive to understand... and be patient. Be forgiving. Learn to value rest, but don't accept slack.

You'll get this.