VERY basic jazz concepts include:
- the use of 7th and 9th chords. You won't hear tons of major chords in jazz.
- the use of the arpeggio, which is another very jazzy item. Basically (correct me if I'm wrong) an arpeggio is a scale-like pattern using ALL the notes of a given chord. So, no matter where you are in the pattern you are always hitting a chord note, and it will sound "right".
- the Circle of Fifths. There's probably lots written about this on the site, but in terms of jazz chord progressions, one of the absolute fundamentals is following the Circle of Fifths. I'm not very good at explaining it, so go do a bit of reading! :D
Hope that helps a wee bit. I'm no expert!
