There are a couple of things going on, both of which are helped by doing some serious ear training. First, sure, listen to the music to get a sense of how the language sounds. And transcribe folks whose playing you like, whose playing reaches you on an emotional level. You want to speak French, you gotta hear how it sounds when French people speak it.
But at some point you want to say what YOU want to say, not repeat what you heard other people say in a similar situation. YOUR ideas, YOUR voice.
Which means that all of those symbols on a piece of paper need to mean something to you, aurally. And, over and above that, you need to be able to HEAR what the sounds the other musicians are making
mean. This music is like a conversation; the harmony (chords) of any given composition are a loose framework with which you get to superimpose whatever internal melody you are hearing.
As long as you can hear it clearly enough that you know what notes you re hearing and how to get them out into the air on your instrument. And you can do that with whatever level of vocabulary you have at your disposal right now. Sure, if all you can say in French is "Look, what a pretty cat." then your opportunity for extended conversation is gonna be limited. But you can SAY something with actual meaning and intent, that other French speakers can respond to and interact with meaning. As opposed to just learning a bunch of French words and cramming them in everywhere -"banana dam mongoose terwilliger mahout" don't mean ****.
At the risk of offensive self promotion, I gotta book that deals with learning some ways to learn to HEAR notes choices that propel the harmony forward in a walking line, it's called
WALKING BASSICS:The Fundamentals of Jazz Bass Playing, some folks have had nice things to say about it. There's also a thread I started called
REALLY Learning a Tune that is an exercise I got from teacher (who got it from his teacher, Lennie Tristano) that I've found very helpful in getting your EAR involved in the note choice decision.
