Years of playing his horn stretches musician's cheeks to his chest!

By Peter Mecklin
Weekly World News, September 29, 1998, p. 35.

NEW ORLEANS - People point and stare at Michael Oliphert wherever he goes because his jowls droop to his chest -- a deformity caused by years of straining to play the trumpet like his hero -- Dizzy Gillespie.

"I was never much good at it but Lord knows how I love to blow that trumpet," said Oliphert, who used to earn a meager living playing for tourists in the French Quarter.

"Of course, I've played a high price for doing what I love. Look at me. Look at my face."

"My only hope now is that cosmetic surgery will make me normal again. But it isn't cheap. I'm really going to have ot save my money to get the job done.

Oliphert's mind-twisting journey from musician to freak began in 1971. That's when he quit his boring janitor's job in the warehouse to pursue his dream of playing trumpet.

"I never made much money at it but I was doing what I wanted to do," he said. "I tried to play like jazz musician Dizzy Gillespie -- remember him, how his cheeks puffed way out? That's what I looked like, really straining to play."

As the years passed, Oliphert noticed that his jowls were drooping. "I just figured it was part of the game," he said.

The situation went from bad to worse around 1993, he continued, when his jowls drooped below his jaw bones for the first time.

"I know something was badly wrong but like most people, I just didn't want to admit it," he said. "I tried to cover it up with a beard for awhile but that thing itched like crazy.

"But I never once thought about getting rid of my trumpet. It just never entered my mind. But as my cheeks drooped more and more, I didn't have any choice.

"By December of last year, I was washed up. I couldn't blow my trumpet if I wanted to."

Since he stopped playing his trumpet, Oliphert has taken a job with an office cleanup crew. If things go well, he hopes to have the $12,000 he needs to have his face fixed about this time next year.

"I don't need much to live on, so I can save almost everything I earn," he said. "I'm counting the days until I can get that trumpet back up to my lips and blow some notes."

Amazingly enough, cosmetic surgeons say that it isn't that unusual for musicians -- and glass blowers -- to suffer what has been called "drooping jowl syndrome."

"But I must say, this case is unusually severe," one doctor said.

Years of playing his horn stretches musician's cheeks to his chest!
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