How Louis Armstrong's Lips Were Affected By His Playing Style

It takes a lot to get an injury that's either so gruesome or so niche, that it's named after you. But Louis Armstrong pulled it off. As History reports, "Satchmo," as he was sometimes called, put his lips to his trumpet and pursed them into awkward contortions while blowing air through them the same way

It takes a lot to get an injury that's either so gruesome or so niche, that it's named after you. But Louis Armstrong pulled it off.

As History reports, "Satchmo," as he was sometimes called, put his lips to his trumpet and pursed them into awkward contortions while blowing air through them — the same way every trumpeter does. Armstrong, however, did this night after night, year after year, decade after decade. What's more, he did it fervently and enthusiastically, often hitting high notes that require extra effort.

The toll it took on his mouth and lips was evident. More than once he split his lips open, and he developed hard callouses that he sometimes cut off himself with a razor blade. A contemporary even described his lips as "as hard as a piece of wood."

In fact, the matter of lip injuries bedeviling trumpet players isn't limited to Armstrong and his unorthodox career. It's actually not an uncommon condition, and as Clinic Planas reports, it even has a name: "Satchmo's syndrome," as outlined in "Rupture of the Orbicularis Oris in Trumpet Players." According to the clinic, it affects players of all instruments that require blowing and pursed lips and has led to more than one early retirement.

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