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:
