<html><head></head><body><div class="yahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:verdana, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:16px;"><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">I was less amused than I might have been by the tale of Joe Venuti and TRIGGER ..</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">because I attended a performance of Verdi's opera DON CARLOS (source of Mr. Byas's nickname, just as Donizetti's DON PASQUALE was central in the renaming of the fellow saxophonist Jerome Pasquall. <br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">For some reason there was a horse of modest dimensions on stage, glimpsed through a gap in the scenery before being brought on so the reluctant bride of Carlos could be sat aboard. <br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">A male horse it was, with four feet on the ground, when standing, and to cut a ... or rather keep things short four feet hanging beneath the beast's belly. The audience was descorously quiet. Depending on the time of day when she or he is reading this, a trumpeter or trombonist is welcome to extricate from its case their wonted instrument and neigh appropriately</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">imagining the French princess's posterior being jacked up into the saddle. <br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Hee-haw!<br></div></div></body></html>