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Maybe you can shed some light on the mysteries of jazz for me. I just don't get it. About the only jazz I like is dixieland.

I'm just starting to understand it. But I think it's something you have to find out for yourself. Sure, it helps to read what others are discovering about it, but you gotta eat it yourself.

Somebody asked Louis Armstrong, "What is jazz?". He responded, “Man, if you have to ask what it is, you’ll never know.”

While at UT, I took a jazz appreciation class. The professor still called people "cats" and so on. Granted this was now 12-14 years ago, but I wrote in a paper that I felt that jazz lacked structure - next to which he wrote a large red "?!" (I don't think I did so well on that paper).
But that said, there is simply less structure than what most of us are used to. Chord changes can be faster & more extreme, melodies only hinted at, tempos that don't allow for hand-clapping, etc.
I think an important thing to remember in appreciating jazz is that it is a very wide section of music. If you begin listening to the avant-garde jazz of the 1960's, you may find yourself losing interest quickly. Just as if you wanted to get into classical & began with Bela Bartok or John Cage. In fact, I think how you educate & introduce yourself to the music is significant. You can appreciate Beethoven more if you're familiar with Haydn, Mozart & Bach. Jazz is no different - begin at the beginning. As a layperson, I would recommend listening to the "founding fathers" like Armstrong. I would also highly recommend renting (via Netflix et al) Ken Burns' Jazz documentary. I've only seen parts of it, but what a great overview!

May I add that I think improvisational jazz is better in a live setting - whether that be in a venue or in a live recording.

Some great comments, Scott.

I recall learning about philosophy. I was told that most of philosophy is commentary on previous philosophy. To understand Foucault & Derrida, you have to know what Lacan said, To understand what Lacan was saying, you have to know what Freud was saying. (I haven't actually read any of these guys, and I'm not even sure I have the spellings correct or the precendents--anyway, you get the point.)

In order to really understand philosophy (or modern philosophical discourse), you have to at some point go back to Aristotle and Socrates. Every other philosopher is commentary that came after that.

So it is with jazz. I have to start at the beginning. Since jazz is a "living" art, defined at the moment of playing, a performance is necessarily dependent on precendent to which it refers. Like all art, you have to understand how something fits into the larger framework.

So where did jazz come from?