Genres, Words, and Communicating Musical Taste (#12)

I started posting #MusicMonday's, in the hopes that I engage some people out there to discuss, listen and share music with me. Music is better together.

Here are my recommendations, if you're interested.  I'd highly appreciate thoughts:
1. Jose James and Emily King - Heaven on the Ground (http://bit.ly/1gjSsjR)
2. Snarky Puppy - Too Hot to Last (http://bit.ly/19JnACa)
3. Gretchen Parlato - How We Love (bit.ly/186isbH)http://http://bit.ly/186isbH
4. Kimbra - Settle Down (http://bit.ly/19NJgAy)
5. Robert Glasper ft. Norah Jones - Let it Ride (http://bit.ly/1djlphh)
6. Gotye - In Your Light (http://bit.ly/1czY9eo)
7. Lettuce - Break Out (http://bit.ly/1aNuFCm)
8. Q-Tip - Johnny is Dead (http://bit.ly/1e6m7uf)
9. The Bad Plus - Everybody Wants to Rule the World (http://bit.ly/1gygW7W)
10. Stan Getz - Wave (http://bit.ly/1fBXLtY)
11. Gretchen Parlato - Holding Back the Years (http://bit.ly/1dxtaA4)
12. Childish Gambino - Telegraph Avenue (http://bit.ly/1ciNHRK)
13. Frank Ocean - Sweet Life (http://bit.ly/1985oJc)
14. James Fauntleroy - Fertilizer (http://bit.ly/1iKjvVA)
15. Ratatat - Cherry (http://bit.ly/1eNVH0l)
16. Oscar Peterson - Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone (http://bit.ly/1ppi1RG) 
17. Nujabes - Feather (http://bit.ly/1esKoNm)
18. Hard Jazz - Greg Spero (http://bit.ly/gregspero)
19. Pat Metheny - Medley (http://bit.ly/1gcheAi)
20. Robert Glasper - Butterfly (http://bit.ly/1duP4lU)
21. Joshua Redman - Let it Be (http://bit.ly/RedmanLetitBe)
22. Chance the Rapper - Cocoa Butter Kisses (http://bit.ly/ChanceCocoaButter)
23. J Dilla - Lightworks (http://bit.ly/1iU2Yzi)
24. Snarky Puppy - What About Me? (http://bit.ly/1lGxiyd) 
25. Bill Evans - My Bells (http://bit.ly/BillEvansSymphony)
26. Kanye West - Champion (http://bit.ly/KanyeChampion)
27. Russ Kaplan - Gouge (http://bit.ly/1rG8skR)
28. Nujabes - Latitude (http://bit.ly/1pbNkEg)
29. Gabe Dixon - Strike
30. Jose James - Without U (http://bit.ly/JosejamesWithoutu)
31. Funky Knuckles - Shields of Faith (http://bit.ly/1nYkvpJ)
32. Isaac Hayes - Shaft (http://bit.ly/1of6xQv)
33. Soweto Kinch - Good Nyooz (http://bit.ly/1p8SZch)
34. Pat Metheny - Finding and Believing (http://bit.ly/1o9gOlv)
35. Eels - Susan's House (http://bit.ly/1uIDk5w)
36. Lionel Loueke - Ife (http://bit.ly/1pBi2WO)
37. Bill Laurance - Swag Times (http://bit.ly/1srUl2b)
38. Kimbra - Nobody But You (http://bit.ly/W4mO3u)
39. Alan Hampton - Change Your Mind (http://bit.ly/1DcfxjL)

But this leads to a topic for reflection: I've been having more trouble as of late communicating with others about music.  I believe this is mostly on me because I keep changing while in aggregate nothing has changed in the college music scene in the past year or two except maybe a leveling off of our dubstep fixation.

Background for those who have known me for a long time: I'm a jazz guy by trade.  That was what I learned when I started the piano at 13, what I went to programs and did regional bands with in high school, and was the bulkload of my listening, writing, and musical discussion through age 19.  I loved it.

But I don't define myself by it anymore.  Growing up we're placed on pre-defined musical "tracks", the main ones being classical, jazz and rock.  With few exceptions, private teachers will focus on one of these three, schools will offer classes and ensembles in just the first two, radio stations will label themselves one of the three (or pop, but this genre's lowest common denominator nature is definitely a topic for another day), and communities formed under one of these three umbrellas will have a much larger following.  Initial interest put me in the jazz track, but I could have been happy if there was a strongly-supported "funk", "soul", or "jam" track instead.

One of the most important things I learned in college was to be more open-minded (and open-eared) and to seek diversity of knowledge.  But, while genres serve a clear purpose of providing catchall terms and pointing listeners in a general direction, they put up arbitrary walls.  Just like, for example, 2-party political systems or college majors, those in between labels are unintentionally marginalized and encouraged to conform.  We lessen the problem by creating more, more amorphous labels like "ska" or "adult contemporary", but none of this makes it easy when I am asked the classic ice-breaker, "what kind of music do you like?".

This gets at the big question: How do get our music preferences across (to both the musically-passionate and dispassionate) without pigeonholing ourselves into genres, using cliche descriptors like "acoustic", "hard", or "funky", or coming off as totally snobby?

First, I recognize it's not crucial that I be perfectly understood anytime sometime asks me about music.  But, for the segment of the population who loves music and talking about it, I'd love to be able to explain more precisely than:

"It's kinda like jazz and funk and soul and modern, usually dense harmony, with heavy or occasional improvisation, riffs, smooth voice leading..."

And remember, I'm trying not to come off as haughty or trying to prove something.  That's the hard part.  But 2013 labels simply don't do Jose James or Gotye or Lettuce justice.  Here's the common iTunes designations for my recently played music of the past 18 months:

Jazz - Funk - Modern Jazz - Alternative - Hiphop - Fusion - Jazz/Alt. - Blues - Classic Rock - Soul  - Jazz/Funk

This vocabulary is limited and not particularly helpful.  

Here has been recent approach in reaching a "meeting of the ears" with friends: wait and listen to 3 artists they like, and play first the midpoint between your musical comfort zone and theirs.  For example Katie played rap, but seemed to like both substantive/"real" lyrics and intense harmonic grooves, so I played Robert Glasper (who's totally awesome)  Adam came from a traditional jazz track, but also has a soft spot for female pop singers and updated/messing with the trad jazz formula, so I passed on Gretchen Parlato.  My roommate JFran is an interesting case.  He's one of the only people I know who listens to more music than me, but Matrix-dodges my ability to label it.  He likes the rawness of local bands, electronic layers and integration, bands that sound like the Beatles were shoved in the 21st century, ambiance, acoustic guitar he can strum along to, and more (here's one example).  I went out on a limb with this by the cool folk group Bad Books, and we're slowly reaching some musical overlap.

So, my (reasonably practical) recommendation to everyone else who enjoy music: have 3 artists on the top of your mind that represent you, and have a shortcut to play them on your phone.  If everyone has music players with them at all times, we might as well stop confusing each other with words when sounds are worth a million of them.