Jazz Blues

The jazz blues chord progression is similar to the 12 bar blues but has a few more jazz chords. The functions are still the same but there are more secondary dominants and II V's which bring it out of the country/rock blues category and into a jazz category. Note that there are countless variations to this progression but here is what I consider to be a typical jazz blues chord progression:

I7 / IV7 / I7 / V-7 V7ofIV
IV7 / #IVdim7 / I7 / III-7 V7ofII
II-7 / V7 / I7 V7ofII / II-7 V7

Here it is again in the key of C:

C7 / F7 / C7 / G-7 C7
F7 / F#dim7 / C7 / E-7 A7
D-7 / G7 / C7 A7 / D-7 G7

The beauty of the this progression is that you can solo playing the chord changes or just play a blues scale (or both!). As far as chord tensions are concerned, I usually play regular dominant scales on the I7 and IV7 chords and play b9, #9, and sometimes b13 on the V7ofIV, V7ofII and V7 chords. Occasionally I like to drop a #11 on the first I7 chord after a couple choruses.