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The Jazz Blues Chord Progression – Step by Step

In this lesson on the jazz blues chord progression, we turn a regular blues into jazz blues changes, step by step.

Going from the standard blues to a jazz blues chord progression is easier than it sounds. With just a few added chord movements you have “jazz blues” changes.

For me, the jazz blues changes are the blues changes that I hear when I play a blues tune. Even if it’s a basic 12 bar blues, I’m still thinking the jazz blues changes as I play. They have become my “basic blues”.

Whether you are comping for another soloist, or playing a solo, knowing the sound of the changes will allow you to think “jazz blues” instead of just blues.

It’s easy to take the basic 12 bar blues and convert it into a jazz blues chord progression.

We start with this basic blues chord progression:

First we add a the quick change in bar two to get more movement.

Now we use a ii-V jazz chord change in bar 4 to get to the four of the song, the C7 chord in bar 5… this is where it starts to get the jazz blues sound:

Now we add a diminished passing chord in the 6th bar, and a iii-VI-ii-V-I in bar 8

Finally, we throw a cool jazz blues turnaround on the last 2 bars of the jazz blues progression. In the following chart we use the “Coltrane turnaround”:

And in this example of jazz blues changes we use a regular I-vi-ii-V jazz turnaround:

Here’s the ii-V-I lick from the video:

And here are all of the chord charts from the jazz blues guitar lesson:

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Basic Jazz Guitar Chord Substitution and the III-VI-II-V-I Jazz Chord Progression

In this easy jazz guitar chord lesson, you will learn about jazz chord substitution and the III-VI-II-V-I chord progression. The lesson uses most of the chord voicings from last week’s lesson on beginner jazz chords, but we use some of them as chord substitutions to get different sounds or tonalities.

Many chord shapes in jazz guitar can be more than one chord. For example, a Db7 chord can also be a G7 with a flatted 5th. Realizing this is one of the foundations of understanding chord substitution.

We also cover the III-VI-II-V-I chord progression and apply chord substitution to it. Here are the locations of the root notes for each of the intervals in a 3 6 2 5 1 progression. Technically the six should be minor, but we have turned it in to a V7 chord to get more of a jazz turnaround sound.

We also learn the dominant 7/9 chord voicing in this video, which can be used as a substitute for just about any V7 chord with a root on the big E string:

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Major and Minor Sixth Jazz Guitar Chord Exercise

Here’s a great jazz guitar exercise to practice for learning your major and minor sixth jazz chord voicings. Basically you practice switching between Gmaj7 and Gmaj6, and then Amin7 and Amin6, and then the same thing with Cmaj7 and Cmaj6, Dmin7 and Dmin6. There is also some movement of the minor 6 chords to outline a III-VI-II-V-I chord progression.

I originally learned these chords from the first Mickey Baker book. You can get it here: https://amzn.to/2NIt4L

Here are the jazz chord voicings from the video:

There are some other minor 7 and minor 6 chords in the video, but the voicings are the same.

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Easy Jazz Chords Every Guitar Player Should Know

In this lesson we go over some of the most important jazz guitar chord voicings. These are some of the basic jazz chord shells that you will use your entire life as a jazz guitarist.

These could be considered basic jazz guitar chords, but I think of them as foundational jazz chords.

The following chord voicings are all covered in the video. The idea is to have a major 7 chord, a minor 7 chord, a dominant 7 chord, and an m7b5 chord voicings with roots on the E string, and the A string of the guitar. These jazz guitar chord voicings will enable you to play many of the easier tunes in the real book. These chords are the foundation of jazz guitar, and you’ll use them your whole life.

Here is the ii-V-I jazz lick from the video, it’s in the key of G major: