I love jazz because of the Roaring Twenties. I was first exposed to jazz when I saw the films The Great Gatsby (1974) and The Color Purple (1985) my junior year of high school. I met the Vaudeville masters like Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Ethel Waters, Al Jolson, etc through their music, films, and Youtube documentaries. The best show I ever attended was Richard Halpern's Hollywood Cavalcade at The Cicada Club in DTLA back in 2009. The first jazz record I bought was The Roaring Twenties: Hits of 1920. My advice to new listeners is to forget all you know about the 21st century and just dive right into the joys of early 20th century music: ragtime & jazz.