Jimmy Kimmel’s ‘JKL!’ band leader Cleto Escobedo dead at 59
Cleto Escobedo, Jimmy Kimmel’s lifelong friend and band leader on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” has died. He was 59.
Kimmel, 57, announced the news in an Instagram post on Tuesday.
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“Early this morning, we lost a great friend, father, son, musician and man, my longtime bandleader Cleto Escobedo III,” Kimmel wrote.
The talk show host added, “To 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.”
He concluded by writing, “Cherish your friends and please keep Cleto’s wife, children and parents in your prayers.”
A cause of death was not announced.
The Post reached out to Kimmel for comment.
The news comes after “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” abruptly aired a rerun during the Nov 6 episode, due to a “personal matter.”
The scheduled episode was originally supposed to feature “The X-Files” star David Duchovny, “Stranger Things” star Joe Keery and pop singer Madison Beer.
“Due to unforeseen circumstances, @jimmykimmellive needed to reschedule my performance that was originally scheduled to air tonight to a later date,” Beer wrote in a post on Nov. 7.
Together with his band, “Cleto and the Cletones,” Escobedo handled the live music on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” music since the ABC talk show premiered in 2003.
His father, Cleto Escobado Sr., is also part of the band.
During a 2015 interview with ABC7, Kimmel called Escobedo a “child prodigy” and recalled how adamant he was about including him on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
“I’ll tell you one thing. It had to have my band leader, Cleto,” he told the outlet.
The comedian added, “I was nervous, because I thought they’d say, ‘We don’t want your friend to be the band leader. So I took the president of ABC to see him play with his band, and he loved it.”
He added, “Of course I wanted great musicians, but I wanted somebody I had chemistry with. And there’s nobody in my life I have better chemistry with than him.”
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