Alana Sinkëy

Berta Moreno Afro-Jazz Soul Project: Tumaini

by Troy Dostert
June 11, 2021

Tenor saxophonist Berta Moreno released her promising debut, Little Steps, in 2017. It signaled her debt to forbears such as Wayne Shorter and Joe Henderson, and displayed an impressive command of bop language. Tumaini, her engaging follow-up, moves in a rather different direction. Time well-spent in Kenya gave Moreno a wider focus for her compositions, as she adroitly melds jazz, R&B and Afro-Latin idioms into an enjoyable musical synthesis. “Tumaini" is a Swahili word for “hope," and there ...