{"id":373633,"date":"2025-11-12T11:49:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T11:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/373633\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T11:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T11:49:11","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-remembers-his-longtime-bandleader-cleto-escobedo-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/373633\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel Remembers His Longtime Bandleader Cleto Escobedo III"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJimmy Kimmel<\/a> is paying tribute to Cleto Escobedo III, his childhood best friend and longtime bandleader for\u00a0his late night talk show,\u00a0Jimmy Kimmel Live!, who died on Tuesday at 59<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring his 22-minute monologue (below), which he called his \u201chardest\u201d to date, the host recalled tons of memories he shared with Escobedo over the years. The pair became best friends as children after Kimmel\u2019s family moved in across the street from Escobedo\u2019s home in Las Vegas. Once Kimmel later landed his show at ABC in 2003, he brought Escobedo and his band, Cleto and the Cletones, along since the beginning.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe had so many adventures,\u201d Kimmel said through tears during Tuesday\u2019s show. \u201cWe would laugh so hard. We had our own language that almost no one else understood. We didn\u2019t have to say anything. We\u2019d sit here at rehearsal every day. We didn\u2019t have to look at each other. I knew he was thinking about looking at me and I was thinking about looking at him. We look at each other like this and that would be it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel continued, \u201cWe loved all the same things. Baseball, fishing, boxing, [Muhammad] Ali, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Woody Allen, Michael McDonald, Huey Lewis, Stevie Wonder, and most of all, we love David Letterman. We never missed David Letterman. And the first time I was on the [Late Show with David Letterman] was in 1999. It was a really big deal for both of us. That afternoon before the show, I was so nervous. I was walking in New York City, just walking fast, trying to burn off the nervous energy, and I called him just so we could be amazed together that this was happening and it was an amazing thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe comedian went on to praise how \u201cphenomenal\u201d a saxophone player Escobedo was from a young age: \u201cHe was a child prodigy who would get standing ovations in junior high school, if you can imagine that.\u201d And once ABC hired Kimmel to host Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he knew he had to bring his best friend along for the journey.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne day in September of 2002, I got a talk show just out of nowhere. I had a meeting with an executive at ABC named Lloyd Braun and he hired me to host this show. And when you do a show like this, you need a few things. You need a desk, you need an announcer, you need a Guillermo and you need a band. And of course, I wanted Cleto to lead my band,\u201d Kimmel explained. \u201cThe idea that anyone other than him would lead the band was terrifying. It had to be him. I was so scared they would say no and I would have to have another band.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel eventually found the courage to pitch the idea to ABC, and said Escobedo and his father ended up auditioning for the job together.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNot only did I want Cleto to lead the band, I wanted his dad to be in the band. So, I pitched it to Lloyd,\u201d he recalled. \u201cCleto and his dad did a special song. They played \u2018Pick Up the Pieces\u2019 by the Average White Band, which is two saxophones. And Lloyd saw it. He saw the father and son together. He said, \u2018I love it.\u2019 And he just got up and left. And we\u2019ve been working together every day for almost 23 years now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAn emotional Kimmel added, \u201cI\u2019ve often said that the single best thing about doing this show was getting the opportunity to allow Cleto Senior to pick up where he left off in 1966 and become a musician again with his son.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe host continued to express how much \u201ceveryone loves Cleto,\u201d and that \u201ceveryone here at the show, we are devastated.\u201d He also noted that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be taking a few nights off following Escobedo\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEven though I\u2019m heartbroken to lose him,\u201d a teary-eyed Kimmel continued, \u201cI\u2019m going to take yet another lesson from him and acknowledge how lucky I was to have him literally at my side for so many years.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel is paying tribute to Cleto Escobedo III, his childhood best friend and longtime bandleader for\u00a0his late…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":373634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[171,11171,50812,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-373633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-jimmy-kimmel","10":"tag-jimmy-kimmel-live","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115536577362798519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}