| I recall reading or hearing somewhere that Dizzy was not taught to puff out his cheeks... that it was a "habit" he got into and it got progressively "worse" as his cheeks got more elastic. Look closely at photos of him later in life and you'll see that his neck bulged out too.. almost herniated. Since there are so few(!) people who do that, I have to believe that it was unique to him as an individual rather than a "school of embouchure".
I found this quote on a page about Diz. "The first things that people noticed about Dizzy Gillespie were the way his cheeks popped out when he played and the strange trumpet he had, with its bell pointing up at an angle. The first was just a quirk of his playing, and the second happened by accident when somebody sat on his horn."
I still remember the episode of "The Muppets" where he put his finger on his lips and "blew his face up" in response to a question from one of the Muppets. He played some very tasty notes in that show too. |