So if you want to be able to play and improvise over Jazz standards you need
to understand the chord progressions that they are built out of so here's
every single chord progression that you need to know for jazz coming on up
so there are two categories of chord progressions that we're going to talk about number one major
and number two minor chord progressions and then we'll talk about two very important bonus
chord progressions at the end so stick around to the end of the video alright so category one is
major chord progressions and the first chord progression you need to know is the two five
one chord progression the 251 chord progression sounds like this two five one and a great example
of this chord progression can be found in the Jazz standard called Autumn Leaves where we
have a C minor seven F7 B flat major seven which is a two five one in the key of B flat major now
for this video it's really important that you understand how chord progressions work because
if you don't understand that you won't understand what a two five one actually means so take a look
at this major diatonic series of seventh chords we're going to go back to the key of C since a
lot of people know the key of C really well at the very top line here we have a C major scale
now when we harmonize each scale tone with seventh chords it ends up sounding like this
the one is a C Major seven the two is a D minor seven the three is an E minor seven the four is
an F major seven the five is a G7 the six is an A minor seven and the Seven is a B minor seven
flat five or half diminished chord and for jazz we use Roman numerals uppercase means that it's
major or dominant and a lowercase means that it's minor so when we look at what a two five
one in the key of C major is we see that the two chord is a D minor seven the five chord is a g
seven and the one chord the parent key Center is C Major seven so it sounds like this the two
the five and the one so going back to Autumn Leaves when we look at this B flat major seven
we're really asking what is the B flat major scale how do we harmonize that with seventh
chords and we come up with C minor seven F7 I can't stress enough that the major two five one
progression is so important in the Jazz that you will see it come up all the time so if there's
any chord progression that you learned from this video today it needs to be this one the
major 251 chord progression however there's also in jazz variations on the 251. so let's go to
the second chord progression where we have a two five one like we have in the tune but not for me
[Music] right but instead of a minor seventh chord we start with a dominant seven chord so
it's F7 B flat seven the five chord and E flat major seven the one chord now we call this a
secondary dominant which basically just means we're like tonicizing the five chord here if
that goes way over your head that's okay for now the most important thing to know is that
sometimes Jazz musicians will turn that Minor 7 2 chord into a dominant seventh chord and it
really adds a different flavor to the chord progression you'll see this happen in Tunes
like but not for me but many others as well now the next chord progression is called the
one six two five chord progression another really important one and this is exemplified
really well in the tune my shining hour where we have a 16251 in the key of E
flat major and it sounds like this E flat major is the one chord c minor seven is the
sixth chord F minor seven is the two chord and B flat seven is the V chord thank you
very common chord progression also often used in turnarounds now another very common alteration
to the 16251 can be found in a tune like Olio which is what we call a rhythm changes tune in
which most of the song form of Rhythm changes is one six two five ones but with one Minor Detail
changed and that would be we turn the six chord from a minor seventh chord into a dominant seventh
chord so in the case of Oleo it's in the key of B-flat major so it's B flat major seven as the
one chord and then G7 so the dominant six chord instead of minor and then two five so [Music]
right so Jazz musicians do this a lot especially to the six chord again this dominant six now kind
of sounds like it's the five of that C minor seven and it creates this tension and resolution sound
now yet another variation of the 16251 is the one sharp one diminished two five chord progression
you can find this in Tunes like have you met Miss Jones where in this particular case the one chord
IS F major seven so we have F major seven then an F sharp diminished seven which is the sharp one
diminished chord and then a two the G minor seven and then a five with the C7 now really with this
sharp one diminished is doing it says substituting for the six so in the key of f it would be D
7 would be the dominant six chord so instead of doing that you're actually just playing a sharp
one diminished chord because you can substitute that chord for for example a dominant seven flat
nine the D7 flat nine is almost the same as an F sharp diminished seventh except for we have this
nice movement in the bass that sounds good so definitely be on the lookout for this kind of
a chord progression the next chord progression is a three six two five one which you could also
think of as a variation of the one six two five now going back to Oleo what we have is we start
with a B flat major seven that's the one chord A G7 the six a two and a five but then when we
do it again we actually go to the three which is a D minor seven and instead go D minor seven is
the three g seven has the six dominant C minor seven is the two and F7 is the five and what
happens is you can substitute the three chord in any given key for the one chord and that's
what happens in Rhythm changes so you'll often times see this happen not only Rhythm changes
but many other Tunes where we're using this as a turn around to get back eventually to the one
chord again now one thing you may have noticed is that a lot of chord progressions in jazz move
in fourths for example the 251 let's say in the key of B flat major we start with a c and then
we go to an F that's the five that's a fourth interval away and then a fourth interval away
from the V chord is the B flat so a lot of these chord progressions move in force like even the six
the two five one these are all moving in fourths we call this the cycle of fourths and there's no
better tune that exemplifies this than the tune all the things you are and that introduces our
next chord progression which is the six two five one so all the things you are sounds like this
[Music] okay but we have to start the tune is an F minor seven now the F minor seven is not
the one chord or the key Center of this tune the one chord is actually over here in bar four which
is the A flat major seven and so the way we get there is a six two five one so F minor seven B
flat minor seven E flat seven a flat major seven so when we understand the cycle of force we can
pretty much come to the conclusion that no matter what chord in the parent key Center the diatonic
series we're playing we can start on that and cycle and force to get back to some kind of a
resolution center like the one chord so be on the lookout for this playing out in jazz standards
like all the things you are and many others now another very common chord progression in
jazz is the one dominant four seven three six chord progression the one dominant four three
six chord progression a great tune that shows this is this tune called there is no greater love it's
in the key of B flat major and it goes B flat major is the one and then E flat seven the four
chord now normally again if we go back to our major diatonic series we see that the IV chord
is actually a Major Seventh chord however in our particular case we're actually boring from what's
called Blue's Harmony and making the IV chord dominant so we have the one chord the dominant
four chord and then a three in the form of a D minor seven in this particular case it's a D minor
seven flat five but typically it would just be a regular minor seventh chord but that's totally
fine and then to the sixth chord here so B flat major seven E flat seven D minor seven to g seven
usually to some some kind of two chord which in this case it does land on the two chord but
in the dominant seventh form which we talked about earlier in the example of the two five
one with but not for me now by the way if this is like a lot of information and you're like I
don't know how I'm gonna remember all these chord progressions I don't want you to worry about that
because ultimately what happens is the more Jazz standards you learn the more you start to see
these patterns and you start to just understand what they mean automatically and you can hear
them in your head but you have to learn more Jazz standards so I have a free guide called
learn jazz standards the smart way I'll leave a link to that in the description and also when you
sign up for that you get for free our masterclass Jazz standards Mastery formula which will help you
learn and master improvising over Jazz standards so click the link in the description below to get
that for free okay so now let's move on to the next category of chord progressions which is
the minor chord progressions that come up in jazz so let's head back to Autumn Leaves we recognize
this from the major 251 to the B-flat major that we first first discussed now let's look a little
further into the tune where we have this minor two five one and in this case it's in the key
of G minor and so it sounds like this it's an A minor seven flat five or we call that a half
diminished chord to a dominant seven for the five chord to a one chord which in this case is G minor
seven [Music] now again we have to step back for a second and ask ourselves the question how did
I know in this case that the two chord in a minor key is a half diminished chord well we also have
to look at some sort of a diatonic series in order to understand how we come up with the chords in
minor Keys the only problem with that is there are three different scales you need to harmonize
the natural minor the harmonic minor and the melodic minor now this makes things complicated
because every single time you harmonize those scales with seventh chords like we did with the
major diatonic series you come up with different results of what quality of chord it's going to be
depending on it's the fifth or the sixth or even the one chord so while we won't be going over all
those harmonizations in this video it's important that you do your due diligence there but what I've
come up with is this minor diatonic series of seventh chords which essentially shows what I
see most often happening in jazz standards the way that they're harmonized and this is really
drawing from all three of those scales it's not just one scale so for example this Top Line unlike
the major diatonic series that I had for you is not a scale it's just simply what the base note
of each chord in the series actually is and so when you do that you have in the key of C Minor
A C minor seven is the one chord A D minor seven flat five is the two chord an E flat major seven
is the three chord and F minor seven is the four chord a g seven is the V chord and the sixth chord
is an A minor seven flat five chord and then a finally of course the seven chord is B flat seven
again please huge disclaimer on using this chart here there are other options these are just some
very common ones I see in jazz standards the next minor chord progression is the one six two five in
of course A minor key now a good example of this is in the tune Lullaby of Birdland where you have
a one six two five chord progression in the key of F minor so that'd be F minor seven D minor
seven flat five is the sixth chord G minor seven flat five is the G chord and then C7
5 chord so you'll hear this come up in minor blues as well and so you really want to know these and
to be honest with you as far as the category of minor chord progressions goes there's actually not
a whole lot of them other than variations or chord substitutions which we're not going to fully dive
into here so as long as you know the minor 251 and the minor one six two five one you're going to be
covered for most of the time when looking at jazz standards speaking of chord substitutions though
there are a few that I want to give as a bonus here that I think do come up in jazz standards
the first one is a tritone sub of five two five one chord progression so going to the key of C
we have a D minor seven two chord and then a d flat seven this is a tritone substitution for
the V chord which would have been a G7 arriving at the one chord now a tritone substitution just
to catch anybody up here is essentially when you substitute one chord for another dominant seventh
chord a tritone interval away so if the V chord of C is g a tritone interval or the flat five or
the sharp four of the scale however you want to think about it is d flat so if we make d flat a
dominant seventh chord then we have a tritone sub of in this case five so now it's D minor
seven d flat seven and C Major seven now this doesn't always come up as being composed into
jazz standards but it's a very common substitution that jazz musicians will often use now another
tritone substitution that is used in a minor key is a tritone sub of two so in the key of C minor
that would be a flat seven g seven and C minor seven so again going back to what is the two chord
in c minor that's a D minor seven flat five a tritone away from D Minor is a flat making it to a
dominant seventh chord and now you have a tritone sub of two so the next step you might be thinking
is okay we know all these chord progressions in jazz standards but how do I go about memorizing
these chord progressions within the Jazz standards so I don't forget them so that I can actually play
and improvise over these Tunes well I have a video on the screen right now called how to memorize
chords from Jazz standards so go ahead and click on that right now hey also check out my inner
circle membership this is where we learn a new Jazz standard every single month link down in the
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