Many jazz improvisers identify a chord or harmony as either tonic or dominant. I like to think of a tonic harmony as a home base and a dominant harmony as a route to home base.
The tonic chord sounds stable, as if it wants to stay where it is and not move anywhere. A tonic is either major or minor. Here is a CMaj7 chord.
Can you hear how the G7 is unstable and wants to move to the CMaj7? If we add the IImin7 chord (which as we will learn, is similar to a G7sus4 chord) the two chords, Dmin7 and G7, want to move to a stable tonic chord such as CMaj7. So, finally, here is a II/V/I progression.
The chords in the first 2 measures are unstable and want to move to the I or tonic chord, CMaj7.
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