Jimmy Kimmel’s Lifelong Friend and Jimmy Kimmel Live! Band Leader Cleto Escobedo Dies at 59: ‘We Are Heartbroken’

Cleto Escobedo III, the beloved leader of Cleto and the Cletones — the house band on Jimmy Kimmel Live! — has died at age 59.

Host Jimmy Kimmel shared the news on Instagram on Tuesday, Nov. 11, writing, “Early this morning, we lost a great friend, father, son, musician and man, my longtime bandleader Cleto Escobedo III. 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. Cherish your friends and please keep Cleto’s wife, children and parents in your prayers.”

The announcement follows the recent postponement of Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Nov. 6 due to what was described as a “personal matter” involving the host, according to Entertainment Weekly.

In 2016, Kimmel honored Escobedo on his 50th birthday with a special segment reminiscing about their childhood together. “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 joked at the time.

He went on to recall how Escobedo would “sit on the lawn with his BB gun just shooting at me,” and that as teenagers they would sneak his dad’s shotgun to “shoot kites out of the sky.” Kimmel also laughed about one of Escobedo’s infamous teenage pranks: “Cleto would quietly, in the back, slip out of his pants and moon people from the back of our car.”

Cleto and the Cletones has provided live music for Jimmy Kimmel Live! since its debut in 2003. Escobedo’s father, Cleto Escobedo Sr., has been part of the band from the beginning, playing tenor and alto saxophones.

In January 2022, the father-son duo celebrated nearly two decades of performing together. “19 years of this!! Love ya Dad,” Escobedo wrote on Instagram, sharing a backstage photo of the two at the show.

Kimmel described Escobedo as “a child prodigy” in an interview with ABC7, recalling, “The whole school would gather to watch. He’d get standing ovations. It was a crazy thing.”

Before joining Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Escobedo “toured with Earth, Wind & Fire and Paula Abdul” and “had his own record deal,” Kimmel noted. When it came time to form the show’s band, Kimmel said there was never any question about who should lead it: “It had to be Cleto.”

“I was nervous because I thought they’d say, ‘We don’t want your friend to be the band leader,’” Kimmel told ABC7. “So I took the president of ABC to see him play with his band, and he loved it.”

Reflecting on their long partnership, Kimmel 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.”