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Alright, my last two comments on this sub were downvoted, so I'm going to give it one more shot.

One of the mainstays of jazz since the early days has been common repertoire, the songs that have come to be known as "standards." If you resurrected Louis Armstrong from the grave you could take him to a session anywhere in the world and he'd find common tunes to play with the jazz musicians there. I'm going to guess that a big part of what you're not getting about jazz is you have little or no familiarity with these songs, so learning them, even just as a listener, is going to be one of your main jobs right now. I posted a video the other day called Aimee's Top 25 Jazz Standards To Know that is as good a list as any to start with. I used Nat King Cole's vocal recordings to introduce my daughter to some of these when she was five, because Nat sticks with the melody but still has a jazz delivery. Frank Sinatra is another good source, because he recorded just about every damn standard that is a vocal tune and did it with great jazz musicians. Obviously there are a zillion great instrumental versions of these tunes as well. A good place to look for the songs' histories and seminal recordings is jazzstandards.com.

One resource that you really should purchase to help you get up to speed on standards is a good, legit fakebook. The most common one is called The Real Book, and I advise getting a hard copy. I actually prefer the Chuck Sher New Real Book and its sequels, but either it or the Hal Leonard RB will get you started. If I'm not mistaken all of the tunes on Aimee's list (25 standards) are in the HLRB.

Next you should select a song from the fakebook, an easy one such as Blue Bossa or Satin Doll, and learn it all the way down, soup to nuts. This means you should know the written melody and chord changes cold. If you don't know some of the chords get a chord encyclopedia and learn them (I used books such as the Mickey Baker's How To Play Jazz and Hot Guitar, The Joe Pass Guitar Style, Ted Greene's Chord Chemistry and other to learn what Howard Roberts called "garden variety jazz guitar chords.") Be able to strum the chords to whatever tune(s) you pick in quarter notes in every bar, and you can apply comping rhythms later. There's an app for the Android and iPhone called the iReal pro that plays backing tracks to practice to, and they have a forum where you can download a playlist of 1,300 jazz tunes. It's well worth the $14 or so.

One main reason I'm starting with telling you to learn songs right away is literally everything else - chords, scales, arpeggios, lines, substitutions, rhythmic concepts, and so on - can be applied to tunes. Learning tunes enables you to play with other people, and as you get better you can find work backing singers and horn players, playing in guitar-bass-drum trios, and playing solo guitar if you're learning the songs as chord melodies. Believe me when I tell you almost every jazz musician you can name went through this process of learning and studying standards.

Last, one element of becoming a competent jazz player is rhythm. A lot of the rhythmic vocabulary is acquired naturally by listening, but if you're serious about learning this art form you'll want to study rhythm as well. Over the years I've used a number of books designed to improve reading as tools to help improve my time, including Melodic Rhythms for Guitar, Louis Bellson's rhythm reading books, and most recently Gary Hess's Encyclopedia of Reading Rhythms. These won't necessarily help as far as developing a jazz "feel," but it's mandatory to be comfortable with all the basic units of time so you can have a solid rhythmic base to improvise and interact with other musicians.

I hope this helps, and I'm up for questions about anything else.

> Obviously if I were to jump into a jazz improv session I couldn't say "wait everybody, tell me the exact order of the chords you're going to play and I'll memorize some scales to them really quick".

Exactly, this is how rock players tend to approach jazz and it's hopelessly difficult for most situations. Plus, even if you manage to do it you're unlikely to sound like a jazz musician. I wasted a fair bit of time trying to do this back in the day. Here's a clip of Hal Galper laying into this approach; incidentally, you should watch all his clips, they're great.

In particular, I wouldn't worry at all about "jazz theory". I'm not even convinced such a thing exists. I mean, if you want to you can work through a college textbook like Levine but it won't make you a jazz player. I think /u/awindupgirl is 100% right on this.

Echoing what others have already said I would say your first steps are:

• Start listening obsessively to jazz. Not jazz-rock, not avant garde, not recent stuff but bebop and similar stuff from the '40s & '50s. Include some vocal jazz (Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan etc) because you'll also need to...
  
• Start learning standard tunes. That means you can sing and play the melody and play the chords without looking at the lead sheet. I know everyone moans about them but get the Real Book and use that for now. This list is useful guidance. [EDIT: Also, lead sheets for most standards can be turned up by a Google image search.]
  
• It will help to learn some jazz chord grips, which tend to be different from what rock players use. This resource will get you started. When you go to a jazz jam, most of the time you'll be comping (playing chords) so this is a key skill.
  
• Slowly start attempting to solo on the changes to tunes you know using chord tones, like /u/beardling described. If you know your CAGED arpeggios from your rock days, that will help massively. When trying to solo, always keep the melody of the song in your head. You're playing the song, not noodling to a backing track.
  
• Also, start transcribing. That means picking a solo that's not too fast and complicated-sounding on a tune you already know, and listenign to it over and over with your guitar in your hand until you can play some of the phrases you hear. This takes a long time and is extremely frustrating. As with many things, the people who succeed are the ones who don't give up just because it seems impossible.
  
  Most of the time you spend on the above should be spent listening and playing, not book-learning.
  
  You'll probably find this page, and the whole rest of the site, useful. It's not everyone's thing but I'd also recommend checking out Kenny Werner [EDIT: link].
  
  Finally, good time is the single most important thing in jazz. Set the metronome to click on the 2 and 4 like Emily Remler tells you in the video in the sidebar and really nail your timing. You can play any note on any chord and make it work but if you're out of time nothing will sound good.

if you can read sheet music decently I'd recommend William Leavitt's Modern Guitar Method - It's fairly tough for new guitar students because most of them don't know how to sight read, but if you can do that then this is a really great resource and will teach you scales and chords in different areas all over the guitar. This book doesn't hold your hand, so go in expecting that it's dense and might take time a long time to get through.

Outside of working through books, it sounds like you want to know the fretboard notes more than anything, so I'd recommend learning in this order:

• Memorize the notes on the low E string and the A string. (playing e minor and a minor scales vertically [up one string] are useful for this so you don't have to worry about accidentals much yet)
  
  playing vertically is important to know but isn't very efficient
  
  
• Memorize the notes on the 5th fret (ADGCEA) and come up with an acronym to speed things up and to be able to find notes between 5th and 12th frets much faster - A Dog Got Caught Eating Apples for example
  
  
• Check out an app (also an online version) called [Tenuto] (https://www.musictheory.net/exercises) and practice Fretboard note identification, and eventually interval training (learning chords tricks you into doing this too). I especially like this on mobile because you can learn the fretboard pretty well when you're on the bus or taking a dump or whatever. Use the test mode and you'll see yourself getting way faster over time and eventually you'll start to see frets as letters instead of numbers.
  
  
• My biggest advice to most guitarists who want to be well rounded is to learn chords. Chord knowledge is super useful on guitar - you can start to see intervals/arpeggios/scales really well by knowing chords on guitar - they're like the skeletons that outline scales and arpeggios.
  
  my advice for this is to learn E shape, A shape, and D shape barre chords, assuming you already know CAGED+F open chords. That paired with a good knowledge of the E and A string and you are off to a great start. Guitar takes a lot more work than piano in order to see chords and be able to move around efficiently.
  
  Tl;dr get the app Tenuto, also available on pc here and work through William Leavitt's Modern Guitar Method (i'm in no way affiliated with either - I'm a professional musician and teacher and they're both tools that I use daily)

Eric Clapton, despite making an album of standards, is not a jazz player. This is coming from someone who bought Disraeli Gears as a kid around the time it came out (Cream record with Eric as guitarist if you're not already familiar). I'm not saying he's not fine to listen to, but calling him "jazz" in the company of other jazz players is probably not a good idea. ;-)

I'm reading some of the other comments and see you're getting downvoted. If you're serious about learning this music I'm sorry other people are taking this attitude towards you.

First of all, music isn't about the gear, necessarily. Plenty of great jazz players such as Ed Bickert, Lenny Breau, Mike Stern, and Ted Greene used solid body guitars even Joe Pass used one for a while. Hollow body guitars, though, can sound great and have "the vibe." The main thing you'll want to look for in an amp is that it's clean and not too bright, as in too much treble. As others have mentioned most "traditional" jazz players don't use pedals, but some like Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Mike Stern, and Alan Holdsworth do in more modern settings. In what we call mainstream it's generally only some reverb, maybe a pinch of delay or a little chorus.

I read on one post that you have had trouble transcribing. Although there are a very few good players who say they don't transcribe the overwhelming majority of good players do/did. It can be really frustrating at first but it's one of the best bangs for the buck as far as learning to play. Louis Armstrong is a good starting point, so is Charlie Christian, the first electric guitar "star." The golden rule is "learn one note at a time."

If you're not up on music theory and how to read music you will probably want to start learning how asap. Here's a good book for learning to read. If you're relying on TAB you should quit using it immediately. This is one of the few things I think is non-negotiable. TAB is fine for rock and some other styles but if you want to play jazz it will only hold you back.

The vast majority of jazz players learn to improvise on a body of songs that are loosely called "standards." There are a lot of books out there that have these tunes such as the Hal Leonard Real Books and the Chuck Sher series of New Real Books. Another source is Jamey Aebersold's play-a-long albums and books, featuring real musicians playing backing tracks for you to practice soloing with. A lot of people use the phone ap iReal Pro, but the feel is quite mechanical and you only get the chords, no melodies.

Jamey Aebersold also puts out a free handbook called the Red Book that is packed with info about how to improvise. Download it here.

Keep after it and keep coming back to this sub for tips.

I found barry galbraiths comping book to be pretty helpful, it doesn't talk about voicings at all, just has different comping studies over standard changes

https://www.amazon.com/Barry-Galbraith-Comping-Play-Long/dp/1562240404

and what i love about his voicings are they are very practical and useful on all string sets, nothing too "outside" which is perfect for just getting into basic comping.

Another thing I like to add with comping is the notion that someone should be able to transcribe a chorus of your comping, and arrange it for other instruments, this means that it needs to always have good, in the pocket rhythm, and clear harmony. Imagine arranging your comping for a sax quartet or something, would you be able to hear clear harmonies and rhythms? this is of course beyond the necessary function of supporting the soloist, or band etc.

What isnoreyoudrive and landonllama have said is correct. For now you've got to take those charts home and woodshed the crap out of them. Reading music on guitar can be super frustrating at first but it's better that you learn to do it now rather than later.

I recommend you get a copy of a book called Melodic Rhythms for Guitar by Wm. Leavitt. and start practicing from it daily. It's going to sound obvious but the only way you improve is to practice daily for a period of at least a few months, but realistically for the next couple of years to get it solidified. Even as little as 15 minutes daily will go a long way towards that goal of being able to read fluently. Also, when learning the rhythm groups and studies in the Leavitt book (or any other music you're learning) it's super important to count the rhythms. Do this as slowly as you have to - it doesn't even need to be in time at this point - just plug away while audibly saying the rhythms, such as "one and two, three and four" for two 8th notes, a quarter note, two more 8th notes, a quarter note, etc. If this is confusing talk to your band director or a good reader in your jazz band to help you with it.

i'll be honest, i've played guitar for nearly 10 years now and have read music for 7-8 of those years. for the most part, being able to read music is a great skill to have, but it won't automatically turn you into a completely new player.

if you feel that you're stuck in a rut and want to try something new, listen to new music, and transcribe from different guitarists or even other instrumentalists. whenever i feel stuck, i usually give the guitar a rest and pursue my other interests. when i get back to it, i feel refreshed and even the old things feel new.

if you still want to stick to reading, i recommend you check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Reading-Guitar-Complete-Method/dp/0793581885/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452241138&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+read+music+guitar

i've used it multiple times and it has helped me out. on top of that, get yourself a real book and start trying to play tunes that are at your level. in the beginning, you should try and only play tunes that have whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes. you will be able to learn to read proficiently, but it all depends on how much effort you put into it. if you practice reading for 15-30 mins a day, in a year you'll be quite good at it.

right now, i recommend that you do two things:

1. if you haven't, start learning the notes on the fretboard up to the 12th fret. after the 12th, the notes repeat themselves.
   
   
2. start learning where the notes lie on a musical staff, specifically, on a treble clef staff. you should be able to quickly identify where all the notes are, up to two ledger lines, both above and below the musical staff.

Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book is good - probably one of the better books of its type out there.

I would highly recommend The Joe Pass Guitar Style by Joe Pass and Bill Thrasher. The theory is "old school" - no discussion of modes, for example - but if you have basic knowledge of major keys and simple chord construction you'll be able to piece your way through. I picked it up after two years of playing guitar and two semesters of high school music theory and didn't find it difficult to follow. There is a lot of info and it's condensed, but also hands-on useful materiel such as written out solos on regular blues, minor blues, "Parker" blues (Blues for Alice), and 3/4 blues a-la the tune "Bluesette."

After years of fascination with the esoteric I lost my taste for Mick Goodrick's Advancing Guitarist and sold it. I'm not saying it has no use, but overall I would not put it at the top of my list of recommendations. The same goes for Dennis Sandole's book Guitar Lore, another extremely over-hyped book IMO.

Another book I used a lot in my formative years is Improvising Jazz by Jerry Coker. That was where I learned about chord scale relationships and the Roman numeral system for analyzing chord changes, which is super useful for learning tunes in all keys.

I recommend William Leavitt's Reading Studies for Guitar. I've been reading two pages a day and it's been really helping me to improve. The key is to read through them with a metronome and don't stop at all to correct your mistakes- that's how you really get better at sight reading.

Now when it comes to reading in big band, you've got the right idea. I always check, in order: key, time signature, road map (repeats/coda), highest/lowest note you'll be playing in the part, then determine best caged position(s). If you still have time left after doing those, try to learn the trickiest parts (difficult rhythms, lines with accidentals). If you can do all that while the band director is still talking to the horn section or whatever, you'll be set when he counts you in! Hope this helps!

Here's the book I mentioned:

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Studies-Guitar-Positions-Multi-Position/dp/0634013351

You need to start counting rhythms. You don't need a guitar to do this necessarily. There are a number of books with written out rhythms to practice, such as Louis Bellson's Modern Reading Text in 4/4 For All Instruments, Ted Reed's Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer, and Gary Hess's Encyclopedia of Reading Rhythms. There are numerous ways to practice the rhythms in these books - counting the rhythm while clapping a steady pulse, counting a steady pulse while clapping the rhythm, tapping a steady pulse with your left hand while clapping the rhythm with your right while also counting, and so on. When I say "count" I mean count out loud. Your goal is to learn to keep your place in measures while accurately executing and eventually feeling rhythms.

You can also do these steps with a guitar in your hand. Just pick a chord - maybe one you're trying to work into your repertoire - and play the written rhythm with that chord while you're counting.

This will probably seem awkward and "unmusical" when you first start, but trust me when I tell you this is going to radically improve your rhythmic vocabulary and time feel over the long haul. This is the kind of thing band and orchestra kids learn as a matter of course and most guitarists don't get because we don't learn to read in ensembles.

There's a series of books called Fretboard Roadmaps, written by Fred Sokolow. I can't really speak to their general quality, but this book is extremely accessible, and gives you some great tips for chord voicings, voice leading, basic improvising, and comping.

I've read a lot of guitar specific books which only show you the shapes and maybe a basic lesson on intervals, but this is one of the most comprehensive books I've read for getting into jazz guitar. It also doesn't have goofy 6 string voicings you'll never use in a real setting. Each chapter, lesson, whatever is kind of laid how it would be in a text book, basically summarizing each point and giving you tips for practice.

Of course you can. I'd highly recommend working with some music that is not written for guitar as well. Try and get copies of some simple violin music (great to play on guitar) and if it helps, maybe also a book of drum rhythms. I have used this book a lot to help me over the years with rhythms: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Reading-Text-All-Instruments/dp/0769233775/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=60016439504&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjvX9_OKT5AIVCLrtCh2vTQroEAAYASAAEgKadfD_BwE&hvadid=259063575552&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1007072&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=11601031072553266974&hvtargid=kwd-299782540779&hydadcr=24433_1816114&keywords=modern+reading+text+in+4+4&qid=1566383964&s=books&sr=1-1

Jody Fisher’s Complete Method for Jazz Guitar

I own around 20 guitar books. This one is the best for getting a comprehensive overview of what you should know to start and grow with jazz guitar IMHO. then other books are good for supplementing specific concepts that you find along the way.

Can't go wrong with the Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine

We actually used it in my jazz theory class.

Really I'd just suggest studying basic chord progressions like Bebop blues, minor blues, rhythm changes, etc. Once you can analyze those and understand why they work I feel like it wont be a stretch for you to understand most other things.

Jazz has a lot of typical chord progressions that reoccur in many different tunes and learning those 3 in all 12 keys would give you a lot of material to work with.

Basically whenever you see a dominant quality chord pay attention to how it resolves. Also pay attention to fully diminished chords and how they resolve.

A lot of the times diminished chords are also subs for dominant chords.

Mickey Baker's book is a great resource for developing your comping skills and helps to connect the dots with musically coherent ideas. The second half of the book is on soloing, but I highly recommend it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0825652804/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478195849&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=mickey+baker+jazz+guitar+book+1

At my school everybody takes classical theory for at least 2 years.

We used this book

Here's the work book

You'll probably need the answers too since you're teaching yourself

Really what I got out of it was being able to just instantly know chord spelling. I don't really have to think about a lot of things any more. It's just second nature. You don't really use classical counterpoint rules unless you plan on composing classical music. But it's a good vehicle for learning theory since it's rather specific and you have to consider a lot of things at once.

We use this book in our jazz theory class

But mainly I learned most from the lectures since our professor is really good. We also have to write a jazz tune every week and learn and improvise on it. As well as the ear training.

I wouldn't really even say that theory is "extremely challenging." You just have to spend a lot of time on it. There was a lot of assignments from the work book every week during classical theory. Probably spent like 6+ hours a week just on the homework for those classes. And that's not even including ear training. With any of this stuff you just have to be consistent, I don't think it's really that hard to understand and I started playing music much later than a lot of my peers.

But if you're trying to understand jazz before understanding really basic concepts like knowing your key signatures, how to spell basic triads, the chords in a given key, simple time vs compound time, etc, you're going to have a lot of trouble. Everything builds on to itself so you really have to understand the basics first which might be a little boring but you have to do it.

Alright, thanks. Are we talking about this book? https://www.amazon.com/Barry-Galbraith-Comping-Play-Long/dp/1562240404

You might like this album: https://www.amazon.com/Legends-Johnny-Smith-George-Van/dp/B0000006NE

The Johnny Smith ones are all on unplugged archtop. Here's one of them in full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN4P5qTjHLw

And George van Eps isn't bad either.

The Mickey Baker books are terrible without rooting around on the internet for supplemental material in the way of explanation. Shelve it and getting something that’s actually useful. Like this: Jazz Guitar, Complete Edition (Book & CD) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0739066374/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_jpuWAbXE3WE7X

I would personally buy The New Real Book by Sher Music. It's much more accurate than Hal Leonard's Real Book.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Real-Book-1/dp/0961470143

Is it this one?

There's also a $20 edition that has all the same music and words minus the gold leaf and panda-skin leather binding.

http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-Technique-Jazz-Musicians-Instruments/dp/0634001760

Maybe you're just burned out a bit and need to take 1-3 days off. Happens: http://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/comments/2axpoo/how_to_cope_with_music_burnout/

Maybe these books might give you a perspective, Werner and Galloway/Green. You might think Werner's really out there (practice long tones on piano?), but take his book as a source of questions to shape your thinking, rather than necessarily the right way to think about being a musician

http://kennywerner.com/effortless-mastery

http://www.amazon.com/Inner-Game-Music-Barry-Green/dp/0385231261

Oh OK, I'm afraid I don't know anything about their program. At UNT, sight-reading made or broke students. The most incredible soloists and comp-ers went nowhere (in terms of the University program) if they couldn't sight-read. My first audition was pathetic. But stay hungry and don't give up if you really want it. Check out Advanced Rhythms by Joe Allard or start reading through the Charlie Parker Omnibook with a metronome. I hope you do great!!!!!!!

Well, I doubt it's either of these since they're still in print...but maybe give The Drop 2 Book or Chord Chemistry a go.

the fifth edition is the classic 'illegal' version of the book. it has some errors but it also has a lot of the hipper changes in it. It will be hard to find in a store cuz its 'illegal' but you can find a pdf of it on piratebay no problem.

the 6th edition is the legal version published by hal leonard. It's designed to be a legal replacement for the 5th edition. the page turns are 99% the same and the errors have been fixed. Its usually priced lower than the original and can be bought or ordered easily from any dealer. Some of the changes aren't as hip but its a suitable replacement to the original, shady 5th edition. I reccomend getting the 6th edition first.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Real-Book-Edition-Instruments/dp/B000VZSOI4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1394211867&sr=8-2&keywords=the+real+book

The Sherr music books are really good but they're not standard like the original illegal book or the 6th edition.

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Real-Book-Volume/dp/0961470143/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1394211895&sr=8-11&keywords=the+real+book