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\n Photo: Ethan Miller\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
Cleto Escobedo III, longtime band leader on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, died at the age of 59, Jimmy Kimmel shared<\/a> via Instagram on November 11. \u201cEarly this morning, we lost a great friend, father, son, musician and man, my longtime bandleader Cleto Escobedo III,\u201d Kimmel wrote alongside a photo of Escobedo. \u201cTo say that we are heartbroken is an understatement. Cleto and I have been inseparable since I was nine years old. The fact that we got to work together every day is a dream neither of us could ever have imagined would come true.\u201d<\/p>\n Kimmel met Escobedo in 1977 when Kimmel moved to Las Vegas from Brooklyn as a child. Besides\u00a0shenanigans<\/a>\u00a0involving bike crashes and pranks, the two played music together, and Kimmel called<\/a> Escobedo a \u201cchild prodigy,\u201d remembering how the \u201cwhole school\u201d would come to see him perform. Eventually, when Kimmel was building his team for his talk show, he brought Escobedo on board in 2003; Escobedo had previously considered<\/a> leaving the music industry before Kimmel called. \u201cI think I was in Atlanta, and Jimmy called and said, \u2018Hey man, I think I\u2019m gonna have this show. Do you wanna be my bandleader?\u2019 Of course, I was like \u2018Yes.\u2019\u2019\u201d Escobedo told Guillermo on On The Red Carpet<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s been the best gig ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n