In order to simplify the analysis of the basic blues progression many musicians refer to the Bb7 as the I chord, The Eb7 as the IV and the F7 as the V chord. The first step to making this progression sound more like a jazz blues is to add color to the three basic seventh chords. The most effective way to add color to seventh chords in a blues progression is to change them to 9th or 13th chords. As a rule, this embellishment always works in blues progressions. Embellishing all of the seventh chords to ninth or thirteenth chords is a great way to achieve more of a jazz tonality, but adding color to the basic chords is only the beginning.
Jazz blues uses many more chords and chord types than the standard three chord blues progression.
Look at the twelve bars of a standard blues and compare it to the twelve bars of this Jazz Blues study. This adds harmonic interest to the first four measures. The Eb9 chord in measure 5 is another embellishment of the Eb7 chord. The E diminished seventh chord in bar 6 is considered a passing chord from the Eb7 in bar 5 to chord to the Bb7 chord in bar 7. The progression from Cmin7 to F13 in measures 9 and 10 is considered a major ii V progression.