Mark Levine (October 4, 1938 – January 27, 2022) was an American jazz pianist, trombonist, composer, author and educator.
His musical world was forever changed at age 12, when his brother gave him a jazz recording. He quickly became enamored of the great jazz pianists, starting with Dave Brubeck, Bud Powell and Bill Evans. While attending Seabreeze High School in Daytona Beach, Levine also began playing the valve trombone. He attended Boston University, and graduated with a degree in music in 1960. He also studied privately with Jaki Byard, Hall Overton, and Herb Pomeroy.
Here's "Black" from above CD
Inspired by Jelly Roll Morton’s quip to Alan Lomax about “the Spanish tinge” in jazz and also by a 1979 tome by John Storm Roberts, The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on the United States, Levine’s band produced a series of impeccably recorded albums showcasing Afro-Cuban and Brazilian rhythms in a small-group setting. Tight arrangements and his unique harmonic approach yielded works worthy of study for their harmonic and rhythmic sophistication. The title track from Isla, the quintet’s Grammy-nominated 2002 release, is a perfect example of this approach, morphing seamlessly from the northeastern Brazilian rhythm known as baião to Puerto Rican bomba sicá to Cuban guaguancó, all framed by his advanced harmonic approach.
Levine began teaching in 1970: in addition to private lessons, he worked at Diablo Valley College (1979–95), Mills College (1985–95), Antioch University in San Francisco (1986–87), the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (1992–97), Sonoma State University (1989-1990), and the JazzSchool in Berkeley (from 1997). But it was as a pedagogue that Levine became legendary, through a pair of instructional texts: The Jazz Piano Book, first published in 1990, and the The Jazz Theory Book, published in 1995. Translated into numerous languages, they have become standard texts on the college level for jazz education worldwide.
From 1992 Levine was part of Henderson's big band, but a milestone in Mark’s career took place in 1996, when he traveled to Cuba and studied with Hilario Duran and Chucho Valdés. He formed a Latin jazz group, Que Calor in 1997. Upon returning to the Bay Area, he created his Afro-Caribbean group, The Latin Tinge, with Paul van Wageningen (drums), Michael Spiro (percussion), John Wiitala (bass) and Mary Fettig (flute, soprano sax, bass clarinet). With their very first release, Hey, It’s Me (2000), Mark already showed his affinity to Brazilian music.
Levine was very active in the Latin music scene in the Bay Area, most recently with his group The Latin Tinge.
He died of pneumonia on January 27, 2022, at the Sunrise Assisted Living Facility of Oakland Hills, Calif. He was 83.
(Edited from Wikipedia, WBGO.org & Music Brasileira)