A good New Years resolution for any jazz student could be: "I will learn the 12-bar blues progression, such that I never need a chart again just to get through the chord changes. And in fact, if the piano player forgets the chords, I'll be able to recite them all to them." Now THAT is a worthwhile musical goal for every jazz musician to aspire to!
Let's think about what this means. In jazz, blues tunes tend to be called in just a few common keys: F, Bb, C, Eb. That covers probably 80% of them. For minor blues progressions, it's even less keys - mostly just Cm and Fm. So what do we need to know here?
A 12-bar blues in most genres would look something like this:
Here we see a chord progression made up of just three chords: the I7, IV7 and V7.
In Bb those would be: Bb7, Eb7, F7.
In F those would be F7, Bb7, C7.
It's important to acknowledge this is a great chord progression all by itself. This "simple" version of a 12-bar blues even occurs in jazz, just like this, from time to time. However, this is not the norm for straight-ahead jazz - for whatever reason, jazz players seem to favor a slightly altered version of this basic form. Current convention (since the 50's at least ) seems to favor this general variation:
This is the one we want to be thinking about as jazz players. Here it is in a few common keys:
Learning this chord progression in a few keys, by heart, will put you ahead of a lot of people! If you learn this in Bb, F, C and Eb, you'll be ready for most jazz blues tunes, and not needing to read this progression will give you confidence and help you to sound strong.
We also mentioned a minor blues progression. In our experience, this is a less well-known thing than a regular blues. However, it is also objectively simpler, which is great for those of us tasked with learning it! Let's see what's going on in a minor blues progression.
This is an objectively simpler chord progression than a regular blues, which is nice for those of us tasked with learning it! We can see also that it isn't just "turning all of the chords minor" from a regular blues - not quite. It is truly its own thing with its own identity.
As mentioned previously, this chord progression shows up in jazz mostly in two keys - Cm and Fm. Here's what a minor blues looks like in those keys:
One last thing - you may have encountered these progressions before, and you might be saying: "Hey, when I learned this progression, the chords were a little different than what's presented here!" There are many little variations of this progression - perhaps frustratingly for a beginner, there is no single authoritative expression of a jazz blues. But what's presented here will work in every jazz situation, and to our mind these represent "concensus" thinking around jazz blues progressions.
What do you think? We hope you'll find this to be an inspiring goal for you as the New Year approaches! If you have any questions, we hope you'll drop us a line and let us know.