[dad_chowder]

When I studied jazz piano at university, I was actually taught a very similar technique to the one described in the aritcle. You're right in that we would learn to memorize transcriptions of great players, but there was also a step where we might deconstruct there techniques and apply our own approach to them.

For example, I might see that John Coltrane used a certain scale or lick at a certain point in a song. I then might make a note in my music 'Use X scale here' as an exercise while improvising.

The effect is similar to what the author is describing - chunking broad ideas and implementing them ourselves as practice.