When Wade was in eighth grade, having shown
some prowess with the instrument in his school’s
band room, he persuaded his father to buy him a trumpet.
They were not a well off family, so the instrument was used,
but Wade was very appreciative. His musical hero was
legendary jazz great Dizzy Gillespie, he of the puffed cheeks
and bent trumpet. After several months of practice, Wade decided,
to better emulate his idol, to take the horn into the basement
and bend it similarly in his father’s vise. He succeeded only
in snapping the bell off his trumpet, leaving him, basically,
with the world’s first valved kazoo. His father was furious
and adamantly refused to replace the horn. With some minor
modifications, Wade was able to get sound from his ruined instrument,
and became proficient enough to entertain at parties, school revues
and even on open mic night at a local club. A couple years later,
using some inheritance money from his late grandfather,
he funded the manufacture of an inexpensive tin version
which he patented as the "Jazzoo." It sold surprisingly well
as a novelty instrument and provided enough money to pay
for four years in a local college, studying musicology, and
to earn the begrudging respect of his father, who insisted thereafter
on calling his son "Dizzy," a nickname that stuck for life
and which Wade quite enjoyed.