The attached PDF shows some simple, useful chord moves for ii-V and iii-vi-ii-V progressions.  Here are a few reasons they are so useful:

1) They feature a strategy where you are only moving 1 finger on a grip.
2) They feature voice-leading -- the finger you move outlines a chromatic descent to the next chord
3) They expose how a small vocabulary of chord shapes can be re-used for different voicings

As I've mentioned before, the first teacher who attempted to teach me about jazz guitar recommended the Mickey Baker books.  While they were nice at getting some basic and hip sounds going, there were a lot of holes to be filled.  While I don't particularly recommend starting with them, the best thing about his books was he gives a relatively small number of chord shapes to learn and re-uses them to stand-in for different chords in a hip way.  The first page of the PDF attempts to show how his chord shapes can be used in a ii-V progression.

The 1-finger ii-V is at the heart of what he initially presents, using a min6 as a Dom.9 voicing.  Making a min7 chord (acting as the ii) into a min6 chord (by moving the chord's b7 down 1 fret) gives you a rootless Dominant 9 chord, which is used as the grip for the V chord in the sequence.  Mr. Baker also shows that if you just hold or reposition min7 chord, you end up with a  rootless Dom11 chord.

As you may know, the min6 chord not only sounds like a Dom.9 chord, it is also a half-diminished (min7b5) voicing. The second page of the PDF shows all the various ways the min6 and min7 chords can be interpreted.  Understanding other uses for any grip you learn is a great thing to do.

Page 3 gives a few variations on a iii-VI-ii-V progression with Mickey's chord voicings.  This is the next most essential progression to learn after the ii-V.  Once you learn and hear the 2-5 and the 3-6-2-5, you will be able to abstract away several measures of many jazz standards which will make them easier to learn and remember.  Instead of learning several measures of a standard, you can eventually just represent it in your mind and ear as a 3-6-2-5 leading to a tonic.  If the six chord is a Dominant (has a major 3rd), then the 3-6 is like a ii-V going to the 2 of the ii-V which then goes to the tonic.  

Mickey's variations include using a min7 shape moved down one fret to represent the tritone of the ensuing V chord.  This tritone works out to be a Dom.7(#9) voicing.  A more common written variation is to use a rootless Dominant #11  for a V, which also happens to be a Dom.7(#11) a tritone away.  In addition to using a half-diminished (min7b5) shape as a rootless Dom.9 chord, we also see how a min7b5 shape can be grabbed as  Dominant Altered chords.  Finally, we see that the iii-7 chord can be a Maj9 voicing for the tonic.

Ideally you want to work out similar chord moves for every inversion of these chords.  The remainder of the PDF will give you a start in that direction.

Page 4 begins the chord moves for a I-vi-ii-V in one position for all the basic inversions which are in the Jimmy Bruno Inversions dictionary (you should check that PDF out if you haven't already).  This should allow you to do this chord move anywhere on the neck for any key.  Remember that the vi-7 chord is homonymous with the Tonic as a Maj6.  The squiggly arrow shows you will have to move up some frets to get the chord root on the correct note.  The min6 of the ii is equivalent to the Dom.9 of the V chord (as well as the other homonyms shown on Page 2).

Page 9 shows a 3-6-2-5 progression with altered dominants as the 6 and the 5.  The squiggly arrow is to alert that you will need to move the shape down on the neck to get the root in the right place.  When the 6 and 5 of a 3-6-2-5 are dominants, the 'tonal center' is located a whole tone (2 frets) away from the final Tonic during the 3 to 6.  The VI chord is a Dom.7(#11) while the V chord is a Dom.7(b9) -- which is also a Diminished voicing.  Note that each of the Dominant voicings here are exactly the same chord if played a tritone away.  Try out Mickey's other tritone subs -- making the tritone a min7 or min6 also gives a hip altered dominant sound to the V.  You should also try grabbing a different ii-7 chord to serve as a Dom11 chord for the V.

The basic goal of practicing the content in this PDF is to increase your vocabulary of chord moves for basic building blocks of jazz harmony -- the 2-5, the 3-6-2-5 and the 1-6-2-5.  With study, you will see these progressions again and again in jazz standards.  The extended vocabulary will give you a host of options up and down the neck for playing over these progressions so you are not endlessly repeating yourself comping behind a soloist.  Learning comping is more useful than just learning how to solo with scales or modes -- for starters, you will realistically be comping far more than soloing.  But dig this -- when you start to picture the chord tones of these progressions all over the neck, they will also be the targets you can approach (scalewise, chromatically or any other way) in your solo to outline the harmony.

Here is a great guide for beginners regarding jazz harmony:

The Ultimate No Nonsense Guide to Jazz Harmony

The contents are pretty much what's labeled on the tin -- straightforward explanations of concepts like:

• II-V-I and other cadences
• Secondary Dominants
• Backdoor Progressions
• Backcycling
• Tags
• Altered Harmony

​Knowing your intervals helps you quickly find the roots of classic chord progressions.  Since many chord progressions in classic jazz tunes move in fourths, it is a good idea to learn the circle of fourths and be able to move in fourths at any point on the guitar neck.  This pdf might help you locate all the perfect intervals in the major scale.

​Since the guitar is stacked in fourths, moving vertically from bottom string to top is automatically a fourths motion.  In the image below you can see how starting on the third on the low E and traveling to the high E will move you though the roots of a 3-6-2-5-1 and then to the four.  Remember that strings 2 and 1 (B and E) are tonally shifted up a fret.  The vii happens to be a tri-tone away from the IV. Tri-tones are basically a 'diagonal' away on the fretboard.

​
You can see how a 3-6-2-5-1 would look on the circle of fourths below.  Moving in a counter-clockwise motion brings you from the iii around to the I and then to the IV if you continue.  In order to get to the remaining interval -- the vii -- you would have to jump to the other side of the circle. Diametrically opposite tones on the circle are a tritone apart. 

​Here's a million dollar lesson for free from Bruce Forman on his Guitarwank podcast (episode '99R' April 4th, 2018 ~71:28).

This is a great exercise for people coming from a blues background trying to get a little jazz color in their playing.  The exercise helps get the altered sounds into your ear, even though it is a little bit of a 'fudge.'  Most importantly, it is focused on motif development rather than focusing on learning the shapes to play over each chord.  Instead of trying to re-visualize your fretboard's landscape over every chord, this exercise focuses on making phrases that resolve, i.e. 'making music.'

It is not uncommon for blues players to move their 9th voicing (for example) up a half-step to reference the IV chord. That half-step sound is what a beginner should be looking for when they are trying to 'jazz' up their playing.  If you play all the notes in this half step movement, you will feel how these notes compel you (lead you) to resolve back into the key.  This is how jazz players think.  The jazzbo is constantly introducing tension -- stretching a rubber band -- and then resolving, letting the rubber band come back to it's natural shape.

The ii-V-I is the progression to learn for jazz.  In G the progression is A minor, D7, G major.  If you line up all the notes in these chords, they are all in Gmaj.  It's a 'diatonic' progression -- all the chords' notes are in the same key. However, true jazz players do a lot of stuff to build up their tension playing 'outside' Gmaj.  I reality, it is more hip to play A minor, Ab7, Gmajor -- the tritone substitution. But let's simplify our ability to play this way without thinking to much.


The Exercise:

1) Play a simple phrase over the ii chord -- which is pretty much just a Dorian A minor -- the classic blues scale works.

2) Now repeat this phrase down a half-step.

3) Finally, resovle the phrase by ear.

Step one is the ii chord, step two is the five chord, step three is the one.  The brilliance of this exercise is it forces you to make music more than learning scales and substitutions and theory.  Practicing this helps you develop motifs, gets the altered sound in your ears, and helps you intuit where the leading tones resolve to G major.

There is a theoretical fudge to this exercise in that you are playing a minor on the five instead of a dominant.  But don't get your hackles up over this as a beginner.  Duke Ellington said, "If it sounds good, it is good."  So try to make it sound good. One of the gems of this exercise is you are forced to listen to yourself in the context of the progression.  You are listening to what you are playing because you have to repeat your own phrase.  You are not 'coloring by numbers,' but getting involved with what you are creating.  


Bonus Exercise:

1) Play a simple phrase over the ii chord (again just a blues pentatonic or dorian phrase in Aminor will work).

2) Repeat the phrase a minor third up (that's three frets or semi-tones).

3) Resolve to G major by ear.

To recap -- you are playing something melodic, committing it to memory and repeating it three frets up, then finding a note to answer in the G major scale.

Here you are essentially playing the iv minor (C-) in step two. Some people call iv- the 'important' chord.  The iv minor always wants to resolve to the one.  Now you have a whole harmonic substitution added to your vocabulary.  Try substituting the iv- in place of your five while comping.


Double Bonus Exercise:

Now let's actually play a REAL tritone substitution to get the most tension-resolution out of our line -- let's really stretch the rubber-band. Traditionally we say the tritone is Amin, Ab7, Gmaj.  But what is Ab7 -- just Ebmin with a differnt root!  The tritone is actually 2 minor thirds up from the one chord.   

1) Play a minor phrase over the ii chord.

2) Repeat the phrase 2 minor thirds up (Eb for resolving to Gmaj).

3) Resolve to the root major by ear.

With these three exercises, you've just increased your ii-V-I vocabulary about 400%!

In the Guitarwank podcast, Bruce refers to a youtube video where Josh Smith attempts to explain the same material that Bruce taught him.  I believe that video is here.  Even if you are a seasoned jazzbo -- try these exercises out.  You'll be glad you did.

Check out this great video on reharmonizing the ii-V-I progression from Jens Larsen.  Subscribe to his channel! Support him on Patreon!

In the video, Jens goes through a bunch of variations on the most common progressions in Jazz.  With each progression, he outlines how the reharmonized V chord is devised and what scales work over top of it.  Along the way, you should start to recognize how those weird progressions in standards are really just altered or reharmonized ii-V-I cadences.

Below is a PDF of the various reharmonizations, although some might have slightly different fingerings.

According to Carol Kaye, most jazz soloing was developed in the forties and fifties off chords, not scales.

The chromatic, major, minor and other scales were used more as 'traveling notes' to get to essential tones and arpeggios.

I am making an effort to stop visualizing in scales and start visualizing arpeggios.  Take Cmaj, as played with C on the third fret of the 5th string.  I immediately recognize there is a box there shaped like the root-6 Mixolydian scale pattern.

But now I'm trying to learn how arpeggios sit in this 'box' for the 'ii' chord, the 'V' chord and the 'I' chord.

You can practice the diatonic sequence within this box, just using arpeggios.

Cmaj7 (I), D-7 (ii), E-7(iii), Fmaj7(IV), G-7 (vi), and B-7b5(vii).

The chart below shows the sequence within the root6 Mixolydian box.  Practice the arpeggios starting with the root and work your way through the sequence (I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi, vii).  Say out loud what chord you are going to play next (i.e. 'ii chord').  Then say the interval as you play each note of the arpeggio.  Also practice these arpeggios starting with the 7th interval moving in the diatonic sequence.

Once you know the arpeggios related to each other in a 'box', you can start playing with lines in a 2-5-1, visualizing each arpeggio within this box.  After that, move to another 'box', like the root6 Ionian box, and repeat the exercise -- playing arpeggios in the diatonic sequence.  Then play the arpeggios for a 2-5-1.

Once you have a good visual feel of the arpeggios and their intervals in a 2-5-1 sequence, try a 3-6-2-5-1 sequence.

Why did I stagger the sequence in the chart above so oddly?  Let's break down the diatonic sequence a little more.

The minor iii chord can substitute for a major I chord.  Play each of the arpeggios and listen for yourself.

Think of the iii minor as part of the I.  This is why the 3-6-2-5-1 works as a turnaround.  It starts on iii which is like starting on I, passing in 4ths on the cycle back to the I.

Similarly, the major IV, is part of the ii chord.

The vi chord is also part of the I one chord -- the arpeggio of vi7 works out to I6 -- a Major 6 chord.

The half-diminished vii can be thought of as a dom.9 chord.  A common guitar 2-5 is to play, say A-7 with the root on the bottom, then move the b7 a semi-tone down to create a D9 chord, which is essential the min7b5 vii chord of G.  Try playing the B-7b5 arpeggio over the D9 and you will hear.

In the chart above you can see these relationships horizontally.

You can also play a min7 arpeggio of the ii over the min7b5 arpeggio of the vii (e.g., A-7 over F-7b5).  The min7b5 chord is the 'ii' of a minor ii-V-i progression.

Learning this will help you see substitutions more clearly.  Whenever you have a minor, just think of it as a 'ii' chord.  That means you have a 'iii' minor a whole tone above that and a relative 'IV' major a semi-tone after that.  This is what Carol Kaye calls the 'slide rule' effect. 

You can 'reference your triads' to see what chords work over a change.  For instance, if you do your triads for G7 (start on the 6 string root), you work your way up and see that G7 works with D-, F, A-, C, E-, G, B-b5.   You can play D- over G7 -- think about the common vamp between the D-7 and a G9.

These charts show the arpeggios for the Minor 2-5-1 progression for each position on the neck.

Also included are scales which function well over either parts of or the entire progression.

The Harmonic Minor scale contains all the chord tones of the Minor 2-5-1 progression.  It is a great scale to solo over this minor turnaround.  The Harmonic Minor has a b6 and a major 7.

The Natural Minor at the root of the i chord also contains notes in both the ii chord (half-diminished, or minor 7b5).  The Natural Minor scale has a b6 and a b7.

The Lydian Dominant chord adds a #4 to jazz up the V change.  It's the same as the Mixolydian mode, except with a raised 4.

The Melodic Minor can be used as another variant of the i chord.  The Melodic Minor (aka "Jazz Minor") has a Major 6 and a Major 7. Only the third is flattened.  The seventh degree of the the Melodic Minor is the same as the altered scale.  So if the V has a flat or raised 9 or 5,  you can effectively move this scale so the 7th sits on the 5th degree of the i chord, and you will have the Altered scale for that Dominant.

The Dorian mode, which I didn't include,  is another classic scale for the i chord.

Any of these scales can be used over the progression, but it is important to hit the chord tones (notably the 3rd and 7th) of each change.