I am still making progress memorizing the first 25 songs in my list of over 100 tunes that I consider standard enough for jams. Before I started memorizing I heard from many people that they thought the secret was associating some songs with other songs and recognizing similar patterns that repeat in each of them. While I don’t feel that this is “the” personal secret to memory, I do catch my memory using this trick quite often and here are some that I noticed so far:
The rhythm part to “Jive Bomber” and “Heavy Artillary” is similar. I think when Grappelli put “Jive Bomber” together, he borrowed from the latter song. “Nuages” and “Out Of Nowhere” have a similar chromatic run in them as well as both being in the key of G. “After You’ve Gone” and “All Of Me” are in the same key and share similarities in chord progression and voicings. Even “J’Attendrai” reminds me of certain parts of “All Of Me”. “Minor Swing” and “Minor Blues” are literally interchangeable and you can lay either progression on the other as long as you match the key. Also, just like “Minor Blues”, “Douce Ambience” can have a similar walking progression which sounds nice. “HoneySuckle Rose” and “Sweet Sue”, although in different keys, have a similar first few bars.
Some of these things I notice are things other people probably don’t notice and I probably have not noticed even more things which could help but as I continue memorizing hopefully some of these become more apparent.