Cleto Escobedo III, Jimmy Kimmel's bandleader and childhood friend, dies
at 59
[November 12, 2025]
By MARK KENNEDY
Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is mourning the death of one of
his oldest friends — his show'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 humor. 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, disclosing that
he and Kimmel were huge fans of David Letterman as kids.
Escobedo would grow up to become a professional musician, specializing
in the saxophone, and touring with Earth, Wind and Fire's Phillip Bailey
and Paula Abdul. He recorded with Marc Anthony, Tom Scott and Take Six.
When Kimmel got his own ABC late-night talk show in 2003, he lobbied for
Escobedo to lead the house band on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
“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 canceled. 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.
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This image released by Disney shows Cleto Escobedo on the set of
"Jimmy Kimmel Live!" in March 2025. (Randy Holmes/Disney via AP)
 Escobedo's father is also a member
of the Kimmel house band and plays 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 also 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. Cherish your friends
and please keep Cleto’s wife, children and parents in your prayers,”
Kimmel wrote.
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