{"id":373733,"date":"2025-11-12T13:44:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/373733\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T13:44:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T13:44:17","slug":"jimmy-kimmel-pays-tribute-to-friend-and-bandleader-cleto-escobedo-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/373733\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel Pays Tribute to Friend and Bandleader Cleto Escobedo III"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJimmy Kimmel<\/a> took time last night to remember Cleto Escobedo III, his childhood friend and the longtime bandleader of Jimmy Kimmel Live<\/a>. After announcing the news that Escobedo had died<\/a> on Tuesday afternoon, Kimmel used his monologue to pay tribute to his pal, who was 59. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve been on the air for almost 23 years and I\u2019ve had to do some hard monologues along the way,\u201d Kimmel told the studio audience, breaking into tears. \u201cBut this one is the hardest because late last night, early this morning, we lost someone very special who was much too young to go. And I\u2019d like to tell you about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe late-night host took the opportunity to share his memories of Escobedo. He recounted moving to a subdivision of Las Vegas in 1979 with his family. \u201cThat was where I grew up, on Meadow Lark Lane,\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd there was a boy who lived on my block. He lived across the street and two houses over. He was a little bit older than me. He was a year older than me. His name was Cleto, but we all called him Junior.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKimmel remembered riding his bike down the street on a particular day, wearing boxing gloves and his mother\u2019s sunglasses, when Escobedo spotted him. \u201cYears later, he told me the first time he saw me he thought I was special,\u201d Kimmel said. \u201cI don\u2019t mean special like \u2018This fella is special.\u2019 I mean like Special Olympics-type special. He saw me, a poor mentally-unfortunate kid, and eventually we met. We became friends. And not just regular friends. We became like 24\/7, \u2018Mom please me sleep over please,\u2019 kind of friends.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tHe added that during one summer he slept over at the Escobedo house 33 nights in a row. \u201cWe were never bored,\u201d Kimmel noted. \u201cWe were always up to something.\u201d Kimmel shared a selection of memories from their childhood, including the time Escobedo left a condom wrapper next to Kimmel\u2019s parents\u2019 bed. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe had so many adventures,\u201d Kimmel continued. \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

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\n\tHe added, \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 loved 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\tKimmel also discussed Escobedo\u2019s musical talent, explaining that he was a \u201cphenomenal\u201d saxophone player from a young age. \u201cHe was a child prodigy who would get standing ovations in junior high school, if you can imagine that,\u201d Kimmel said. Escobedo was later hired by Paula Abdul to sing and play saxophone on her tour, and eventually made an album. \u201cI went to Tower Records and bought it there,\u201d Kimmel said. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhen ABC offered Kimmel his own late-night show, Kimmel immediately knew he wanted Escobedo to be part of it. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOne day in September of 2002, I got a talk show just out of nowhere,\u201d Kimmel recalled. \u201cI 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. We grew up watching Dave and Paul, and the 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. And not only did I want Cleto to lead the band, I wanted his dad to be in the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tKimmel set up an evening where Escobedo and his father, Cleto Escobedo II, would perform at a club in Los Angeles. \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\tHe 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\tAs he described the love in the Escobedo family, Kimmel broke into tears again. He explained how much \u201ceveryone loves Cleto,\u201d acknowledging that \u201ceveryone here at the show, we are devastated by this.\u201d <\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s just not fair,\u201d Kimmel said, crying. \u201cHe was the nicest, most humble, kind, and always funny person.\u201d He added, of their shared success, \u201cHe loved me. He loved seeing all of this happen. He loved being a part of it. He never took it for granted. \u2026 He was just a great older brother. No baggage, all love. There\u2019s no one in my life I felt more comfortable with.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the end of the monologue, Kimmel confirmed that Jimmy Kimmel Live will take the rest of the week off following Escobedo\u2019s death. \u201cEven though I\u2019m heartbroken to lose him, I\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 Kimmel concluded. \u201cCherish your friends. We\u2019re not here forever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jimmy Kimmel took time last night to remember Cleto Escobedo III, his childhood friend and the longtime bandleader…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":373734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[171,11171,50812,63863,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-373733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-jimmy-kimmel","10":"tag-jimmy-kimmel-live","11":"tag-late-night-tv","12":"tag-tv","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115537029697332186","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373733","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=373733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}