John Birks Gillespie; was one of the founding fathers of jazz and one of the inventors of bebop. He was a bandleader and performer, famous for his contributions to jazz and his face’s contortions while playing the trumpet. He was nicknamed “Dizzy” for his amusing antics on stage. Dizzy once said that a scientist had studied his face and called them “Gillespie’s Pouches,” the more technical term for why his neck bulged like a bullfrog would be laryngocele. A laryngocele is a benign (yet unmissable) condition where a person has an empty sac alongside his or her larynx. The air sac can share air with the gases flowing past the voice box and expand when the pressure in the mouth/throat increase. Gillespie was either endowed with or forcefully created—from continuous and rigorous use—two of them, resulting in that classic visage accompanying his every horn blast. With repeated and heavy use, the mouth’s buccinator muscles that line the cheeks can stretch and deform. It’s common enough that ballooning cheeks are sometimes called “Glassblower’s Disease” because of the occupational practice of forcing air through a metal pipe repeatedly.
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Incredible Photos Showing Dizzy Gillespie’s Extraordinary Cheeks Inflating While Playing the Trumpet
