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I think this problem of definition is endless. There are probably more attempts at defining the avant-garde than there are actual examples of it. As with your 'innovative', I used to use the term 'experimental' but, as with your observation about someone like Timbaland, such a term can be used far too broadly for it to really mean anything. I mean yes, Timbaland is experimental and innovative, but so is Joyce, and there's clearly a difference between the two. (Aside from the fact that one writes music, the books!) All culture experiments, or innovates to some degree so it must be something else. I think the easiest, if not the most fulfilling, way of thinking about the avant-garde is to look at it strictly as a historical moment, existing primarily within europe and the Soviet Union during the 1920s and early 30s, when it was effectively destroyed by the joint forces of Stalinism and Fascism. There's a strong argument that counters this, suggesting that totalitarianism didn't kill the avant-garde but simply forced it to relocate to America with the enormous amount of emigre artists and intellectuals moving there in the 30s and 40s. But that just complicates things even more.
I suppose that instinctively people know what's being referred to when they say avant-garde, even if they can't fully define it. We sort of know that by asking whether Macca had an interest in the avant-garde we mean if he had an interest in experimental or innovative work being produced outside of the 'mainstream'. And while these are all loaded terms we sort of know what they refer to.
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