Representative Albums: "Smiley and Me", "Up 'til Now", "Mark Levine & the Latin Tinge
Biography
Mark Levine has long mastered the unusual double of piano and valve trombone, being equally skilled on both instruments. Levine graduated from Boston University in 1960 with a music degree. He moved to New York shortly afterwards, freelancing and playing with a variety of top players including Houston Person (1966), Mongo Santamaria (1969-70), Willie Bobo (1971-74), Joe Henderson and Gabor Szabo. Levine relocated to San Francisco in the mid-1970's where he played with Woody Shaw (1975-76), the Blue Mitchell/Harold Land Quintet (1975-79), Joe Henderson, Stan Getz, Bobby Hutcherson, Luis Gasca, Cal Tjader (1979-83). Since then Levine has primarily led his own groups. For a few years he de-emphasized the piano and sought to make a living as a valve trombonist but eventually realized that he could get more work as a pianist. Mark Levine has led sets for Catalyst (1976) and Concord (1983 and 1985). ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
Overthrowing Geography: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle for Palestine; University of California Press (2005)
Why They Don't Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil; Oneworld Publications (2005)
An Impossible Peace: Oslo and the Burdens of History; Zed Books (2007)
Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam; Three Rivers Press, New York (2008)
In a review of LeVine's book Why They Don't Hate Us, the London Sunday Times writes, "LeVine is absolutely right and, indeed, quite brave to insist on the reality of complexity. Terrorism and war both tend to simplify world views and, without doubting their intellectual status, so do the utopians of the new right... Perhaps his book’s greatest virtue is that it introduces both the many shades of opinion and cultural complexity of the, largely, Arab world. In addition, LeVine is absolutely right to insist on the importance of culture... LeVine detonates the uneasy but nonetheless profound complacency that seems to have invaded politics."
Religion, Social Practices and Contested Hegemonies: Reconstructing the Public Sphere in Muslim Majority Societies co-edited with Armando Salvatore; Palgrave Press (2005)
Reapproaching the Border: News Perspectives on the Study of Israel and Palestine co-edited with Sandra Sufian; Rowman and Littlefield (2007)
