This talk is divided into two parts. In the first portion, I offer a deep reading and analysis of the track “Mutiny” from the 1985 eponymous recording The Family. Here, I demonstrate the musical trajectory of this composition, unpacking various versions and performances to show the iterative developmental compositional and performative style so often utilized by Prince. 

Next, I examine Prince’s own performance of this song from the Arsenio Hall Show on March 4, 2014. Here, I offer a critical reading of the performance attempting to make the point that many of the apparent qualities (band leading, arranging, conducting, the emphasis on dance and audience participation) are ones that Miles Davis connected with when, in his autobiography, he wrote that Prince could “be the new Duke Ellington of our time if he just keeps at it.” 

Ellington was a sacrosanct figure in jazz when, in 1990, Davis published those words. Unfortunately, Davis’s endorsement of Prince and assessment that he was musically on the level of Ellington was subsequently used pejoratively as further evidence that Davis had, for such critics as Stanley Crouch, simply fallen from grace. 

As such, in this talk, I want to revisit and reframe Davis’s comments and link them to this transformative late-career Prince performance that evidences so many of the qualities that made both Ellington and Prince seminal musical figures. My point in doing so is to connect clear and shared musical and performative qualities to both Prince and Ellington, to reframe Davis’s important and valid comparison, and to respond to Crouch’s wrongheaded assessment of Davis’s words by giving them the historical consideration they deserve.

As a musician, writer, journalist, and arts educator, the work of Andrew Scott, Ph.D., has impacted many aspects of the educational, and creative arts and culture space in Canada and beyond for nearly three decades. 

A jazz guitarist, Andrew has worked as an in-demand side person, led his own bands with a focus on classic jazz repertoire, and performed and recorded with such musicians as Bernie Senensky, Dan Block, Harry Allen, Grant Stewart, Jim Clayton (The Clayton/Scott Group), Ben Paterson, Randy Sandke, and Jon-Erik Kellso for such labels as Cellar Live, Marshmallow, Boomtang, and Sackville Records. 

Andrew has performed for members of the House of Lords, international dignitaries, and two former Canadian Prime Ministers. 

His latest album, Horizon Song with Kelsley Grant, Amanda Tosoff, Neil Swainson, and Order of Canada winner Terry Clarke was released on Cellar Live records in 2024. 

Andrew has committed himself to learning from the elders of this music and has enjoyed meaningful musical relationships with the late drummer Archie Alleyne—for whom he worked as side musician, music director of Alleyne’s Evolution of Jazz Ensemble, and co-composer of “Syncopation: Life in the Key of Black”—and the nonagenarian pianist Gene DiNovi, with whom Andrew has recorded three albums.

Andrew’s music has been heard internationally in film and television (“Pretend We’re Kissing,” “Once a Thief,” CBC’s “The Border” and “Kim’s Convenience”), and his writing about music has appeared in Downbeat Magazine, Wax Poetics, CODA (where he was the final Managing Editor), Jazz Research Journal, the Havurah Journal, the Humber Literary Review, the Journal of Popular Music Studies, and in more than one hundred sets of jazz liner notes. 

In 2024, Andrew was the principal researcher, essayist, and Associate Producer of an archival release of a 1972 recording from the famed American jazz organist Jack McDuff.

Andrew has also worked as an independent juror and consultant for the Toronto Arts Foundation and as a public educator was an invited lecturer for the Hot Docs “Curious Minds” speaker series, where he presented a six-part series entitled “Nights to Remember: The Great Concerts.” 

In 2025, Andrew will be presenting another lecture series (Anthems: Six Songs That Shaped the World We Live In) for The Speakers Annex. 

Andrew is frequently called upon to speak to such media outlets as the Globe & Mail, Now Toronto, CTV, the Canadian Press and others on topical issues and various events in the world of music, arts, and culture.

His comedic writing regularly appears on such humour platforms as The Haven, The Daily Drunk, MuddyUm, and The Toronto Harold where it garners between multiple hundreds and more than 11K online views, and his poetry has been anthologized by Alien Buddha Press (Alien Buddha Zine #58, Alien Buddha Zine #66, the chapbook Resist the Zeitgeistand in the compilation publication Best of 2024).

Having earned his PhD from York University, Andrew has lectured at universities and conferences across North America (NYU, Kent State, McGill, York University, Western University, the University of Guelph) and has enjoyed a long professional relationship with Humber College, where he is a Professor and the Program Co-ordinator of the Bachelor of Music Program. In this capacity Andrew has taught, administered, advised, and mentored thousands of students.  

Andrew was the former Associate Dean and Acting Dean of Humber’s School of Creative and Performing Arts, where he oversaw and administratively stewarded multiple music programs, as well as creative writing, arts administration, theatre, and comedy faculties. 

At Humber, Andrew has been recognized for his professional efforts, earning the “Administrative Distinguished Service” Award for valued administrative leadership in 2021, and being named a “Champion of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” for contributing to an environmental scan with the Humber EDI Taskforce in 2022. 

As of 2024, Andrew has been involved with numerous research projects that have received nearly $500,000 of federal funding through SSHRC and other research granting bodies. Currently, Andrew is a part of a SSHRC Partnership Development project with the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University entitled: “The show must go on: Supporting Canadian professional musicians” that examines employment issues surrounding professional musicians in Canada.

Andrew is the recipient of The Toronto Musician’s Association (Local 149) “Music Educator of the Year” (2024).