There's a story about the jazz sax player Ben Webster that my music teacher told me. Supposedly he was taking a solo and stopped in the middle of it. When asked what happened later on he said "Sorry, I forgot the lyrics".
6 months into working with my current teacher he told me "ok, well you're not going to like this part, but this is the point where you have to learn and sing all the lyrics to all the tunes we work on". He's in his late 70s and learned the old way, which was you learned the lyrics to all the songs, and improvisation comes from singing them through your instrument (in my case piano). And then you start realizing just how many of the jazz musicians knew all the lyrics to all the standards.
I'm still mainly attracted to the music first, particularly rhythm, but I've gotten a new appreciation for understanding things lyrically as well.
Jazz has a curious duality. Instrumentalists are often told to learn the lyrics so they understand the phrasing of the melody. Conversely, vocalists are often told to listen to instrumentalists performing the same song. So both are trying to approach an ideal performance from opposing starting points.
6 months into working with my current teacher he told me "ok, well you're not going to like this part, but this is the point where you have to learn and sing all the lyrics to all the tunes we work on". He's in his late 70s and learned the old way, which was you learned the lyrics to all the songs, and improvisation comes from singing them through your instrument (in my case piano). And then you start realizing just how many of the jazz musicians knew all the lyrics to all the standards.
I'm still mainly attracted to the music first, particularly rhythm, but I've gotten a new appreciation for understanding things lyrically as well.