Jimmy Kimmel's bandleader and childhood friend, Cleto Escobedo III, dead at 59

Late-night talk-show boniface jemmy Kimmel is bereavement the dying of 1 of his oldest friends — his television program's bandleader, Cleto Escobedo III.

Kimmel announced Escobedo's death Tuesday on Instagram, saying that "we are heartbroken is an understatement." Escobedo was 59.

Escobedo and Kimmel met as children in Las Vegas, where they grew up across the street from each other.

"We just met one day on the street, and there were a few kids on the street, and him and I just became really close friends, and we kind of had the same sense of humour. We just became pals and we've been pals ever since," Escobedo said in a 2022 interview for Texas Tech University's Southwest Collection oral history archive. He also disclosed that he and Kimmel were huge fans of David Letterman when the two were children.

Escobedo became a professional musician specializing in the saxophone, touring with Earth, Wind and Fire's Phillip Bailey as well as Paula Abdul. He recorded with Marc Anthony, Tom Scott and Take Six.

After Kimmel got his own ABC late-night talk show in 2003, he lobbied for Escobedo to lead the house band.

"Of course I wanted great musicians, but I wanted somebody I had chemistry with," Kimmel told WABC in 2015. "And there's nobody in my life I have better chemistry with than him."

In 2016, on Escobedo's 50th birthday, Kimmel dedicated a segment to his friend, recalling pranks with a BB gun or mooning people from the back of his mom's car.

"Cleto had a bicycle with a sidecar attached to it. We called it the side hack. I would get in the sidecar and then Cleto would drive me directly into garbage cans and bushes," Kimmel recalled.

News of Escobedo's death comes after Thursday's episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! was abruptly cancelled. David Duchovny, Joe Keery and Madison Beer were set as the show's guests. The date and cause of Escobedo's death weren't immediately known.

Escobedo's father is also a member of the Kimmel house band, playing tenor and alto saxophones. In January 2022, the father-son duo celebrated nearly two decades of performing on-screen together.

"Jimmy asked me, `Who are we going to get in the band?' I said, 'Well, my normal guys,' and he knew my guys because he had been coming to see us and stuff before he was famous, just to come support me and whatever. I'd invite him to gigs, and if he didn't have anything to do, he'd come check it out, so he knew my guys," Escobedo recounted in the 2022 interview. "Then he just said, 'Hey, man, what about your dad? Wouldn't that be kind of cool?' I was like, 'That would be way cool.'"

In the 2022 interview, Escobedo said the bandleader job had one major benefit: family time.

"Touring and all that stuff is fun, but it's more of a young man's game. Touring, also, too, is not really conducive for family life. I've learned over the years, being on the road and watching how hard it is, leaving your kids for so long. Sometimes they're babies; you come back and then they're talking, it's like, 'What?'" he said.

Escobedo's survivors include his wife Lori and their two children.

"The fact that we got to work together every day is a dream neither of us could ever have imagined would come true," Kimmel wrote. "Cherish your friends and please keep Cleto's wife, children and parents in your prayers."

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