Part of this I cannot understand. If your chops are amazingly good in C, then the other keys should not be hard because they all use the same 12 notes. I mean, of course I know it is harder to play in some keys than others, but Jazz can have so many chord changes and such that even to play a song in C would require knowing lots of other chords.
What if you needed to comp Suffisticated Lady, or Smoke Gets in your Eyes, or Joyspring or whatever songs like that where the bridge is in a whole differnt key than the main section. Can you comp those tunes? Because if you can, then you can already play in different keys.

[This message has been edited by FAEbGBD (edited 08-18-2006).]