Kazoo Day

African tribes used it as a voice disguiser during religious ceremonies. In America, a modified version of the mirliton was a popular African-American folk instrument during the 1800s. The modern day kazoo was invented by Alabama Vest during the 1840s. It was first presented to the world at the Georgia State Fair in 1852 as the “Down South Submarine”. The tone quality of a kazoo is determined by the quality of the membrane or resonator. You don't blow into a kazoo, you hum into it. In the UK, kazoos were originally called "Timmy Talkers."

These instruments were called mirlitons, or “onion flutes.” A popular anecdote suggests that Alabama Vest, a formerly enslaved person residing in Macon, Georgia, designed the modern kazoo in 1840 in collaboration with German clock manufacturer Thaddeus Von Clegg.