Thumbs is the saxophone duo of Yuma and David. The two met nearly ten years ago at a session in a converted factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and became friends right away. Over years of playing in bands together, they explored doubles (flute, clarinet, trumpet) and swapped discoveries: odd warbles, multiphonics, obscure articulations.
Formed for an improvised music series, Thumbs turns these techniques into “modules”: short, flexible ideas the pair memorize and recall on the spot, without a score. Their palette also includes a growing arsenal of unusual sound-makers: dog squeakers, elk and moose calls, bird calls, slide whistles, service bells, and homemade inventions like aquarium-tubing extensions and reeds cut from subway cards. They give these the same attention as their “real” instruments, and take silliness very seriously.
Their latest recording was captured live at Seeds in Brooklyn on the second night of their residency, with no edits or overdubs.
