(upbeat jazz music) - About four years ago, I was at Panama 66 playing, and I noticed a gentleman there.

He was coming out every week and he was checking me out.

And then one week he came up to me and he was like, "Hey, I've been watching you for a few weeks now, and I noticed that you're in a lot of discomfort."

And I kind of gave him a weird look like, "Whoa, what?

How do you know this?"

He's like, "Well, I'm a dentist.

I don't know what's going on.

I don't know anything.

I don't want to get into your personal business, but here's my card.

I'd love to give you a free exam."

Me, fearing doctors, I ignored him, and I was like, "Eh, whatever."

- When Gilbert came in that night at Panama 66, and I started talking to him and he said he had a dental problem, but he was terrified of the dentist, I knew at that moment that I was chosen to help him.

When we all started this at that point, Gilbert was already scared because he was having trouble four years ago hitting certain notes.

He would fatigue.

His jaw would hurt.

His teeth would hurt.

His lips would hurt.

He couldn't get the full air seal.

He couldn't recreate at all times the embouchure he needed.

- As they say, the damage has already been done, because what this thing did was deteriorated all my lower teeth.

So I lost all my lower teeth, and some of my jawbone.

- Gilbert practices on an average of six hours a day.

What he had is the pressure from the orbicularis muscle.

The orbicularis muscle is like this ring, this ring that goes around your mouth, your lips, and the pressure right here of the muscle from playing six hours a day, then going to work or practicing six hours a day, then you go to work and do your job.

- I had gotten to the point where I convinced myself that it was my equipment and not my body.

I was like, "Oh, it's your trumpet or it's your mouthpiece.

Don't worry about it."

But it was really my mouth that was doing the shifting.

I go see him, and he gives me the worst news possible, and we need to look into this.

- When he came in, it was a problem I had never seen before.

We built initially, it's a plastic laser printed bridge.

And then what I did is I injected silicon in here to create a seal, and had him play as the silicon polymerized, medical grade silicon, to form the perfect embouchure and the perfect air seal that was exactly custom-made as he played to his mouth.

- So now I have implants, and they're actually implants that have never been made before.

These are like super bionic, what he calls them, implants.

I don't think it changed my sound because my sound is here.

My sound's not coming here from here.

I'm not producing my sound from my chops.

I'm not producing my sound from the airflow.

My sound is in my head.

And that's why when you get to that level where you can play anything on any instrument, when you master your instrument on that level, like a Wynton Marsalis, you can give Wynton Marsalis a plastic $30 China trumpet, and he's still going to sound like Wynton Marsalis.

So it's all about the sound being in your head.

It's a voice.

And so my voice has never gone away.

My sound has never gone away.

I just had to find alternative ways to still create that sound with reteaching myself how to play the instrument again.

It changed my whole perspective on not only playing, but life.

It changed my point of view of every time that I would set a foot on stage, that I have to approach that music like it was my last day living.