Jazz for someone who doesn't like jazz.

So, blues, after just a short intro, you can tell: that’s Buddy Guy’s guitar, or BB King’s, or Jonny Lang, you can tell that’s Little Walter’s harmonica, .... Delta Blues, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Son House, ... you quickly recognize both their instrument’s sound and voice. And you know which one’s you came to like/love/don’t after a while. You also know which instruments you like more than others.

It’s the same for Jazz. You find what primary instruments and whose voice you respond to, you will eventually find which jazz support players you like, and seek out their musical projects (hearing them supporting others has a lot to do with proper recording/engineering). Then, within your preferred artists, good/bad/great recordings. Don’t let ’sounds great on my system’ be a large factor too early.

I presume you are going to start via Pandora, ... IOW something FREE, to hone in on what you might eventually spend money on. Then, you risk some hard earned cash, mostly successful, some disappointing.

Start a station, i.e. piano: a master, not a singular star, meaning: don’t try Miles Davis too early, don’t try Thelonius Monk too early, try Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, .... Red Garland, Earl Fatha’ Hines, let it run for a few days, don’t try to isolate anyone too early, just let it flow.

There are ’eras’, progressive, especially Saxophone, you have the modern ability to do a quick search, learn something, pick an artist, start a Pandora station, all within 1 minute, for free.

https://www.google.com/search?q=jazz+era+timeline&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS881US881&oq=jazz+era&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l7.6057j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8


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local audiophile group/club? ... perhaps they are having some virtual meetings.

Well, covid 19 precautions are in place, and older, they have to be careful. Perhaps you can call/talk to them now, hook up later.

Eventually, I think you should have that mighty fine couple over for dinner, ask for some recommendations, let them see/hear your system, let him see you handle/play, lift tonearm, .. IOW, they know you know how to carefully handle LP's, because, eventually he might offer to bring some of his lp's over to play on your system, or eventually borrow/lend with you.

I always want to know not only handling skills, but the cartridge/stylus shape/alignment skills before I loan my lp's to my audiophile friends. Not bore with technical discussion, just assure awareness/skills of the methods to get the best out of lps.