Music

Jimmy Kimmel Live! was hit by tragedy this week when bandleader Cleto Escobedo III died from an undisclosed illness. “To say that we are heartbroken is an understatement,” Kimmel said in a statement. “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.” (Watch Kimmel’s 22-minute monologue tribute here.) The gig was also a dream for Jimmy Kimmel Live! keyboardist/musical arranger Jeff Babko, who worked alongside Escobedo for over 30 years, and considered him one of his closest friends. Babko hopped on the phone with Rolling Stone to look back at their time together. 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen television like Jimmy’s monologue the other night. It was something else. We were all feeling a lot, and I think it really showed what kind of family Jimmy created over there. If it’s not legit blood family, it’s one step removed. It’s pretty deep. And with Cleto gone, it’s all hitting hard. These events — the good ones and the bad ones — show our little show-family at its closest. It’s not making it easy.

I met Cleto in 1994. I was just out of college, on my first tour with Julio Iglesias. We’d play Caesars Palace a few times a year in the old Circus Maximus ballroom, the last of the old Vegas rooms still standing. Cleto’s dad was the valet, the butler backstage. Sammy Davis Jr. had gotten him that job years before, and Julio absolutely loved him. Cleto Sr. spoke Spanish, understood Julio in ways most people didn’t — his needs, his personality. He introduced himself to me right away, the friendliest guy, and he treated us musicians with this deep respect when most people treated us like the help. Only later did I learn he had been a musician himself, which explained everything.

Every time I was backstage, Cleto Sr. would tell me, “You gotta meet my son. He’s in L.A. He’s new to town. You’re the L.A. guy.” And then I came home and started following this band, Cecilia Noel and the Wild Clams. Wild is an understatement. Part Latin, part funky L.A. music, part simulated sex show, part complete insanity. Monday nights, Thursday nights — I was there every chance I got. Cecilia eventually asked me to join; I didn’t need rehearsal. I’d memorized the whole show just by being in the room.

And Cleto Jr. was in that band. Singing, playing sax. We really bonded there. One night after a gig, we all ended up at Jerry’s Famous Deli in Studio City. Cleto was holding court with the backup singers, telling horrible stories about his ex-girlfriend, animated and loose and hilarious. And I remember thinking, How do I not know this guy? He liked the way I played, especially the wah-wah pedal I used on keyboards. We kind of found each other right away — instant click. We became inseparable from that Jerry’s Deli moment.

We started doing everyday life together — cotton commercial auditions with the whole 13-piece band shoved into a tiny casting office (the band didn’t get the spot, but the overweight trumpet player did, which we thought was hilarious). We were broke together. If one of us needed $100 to get through the weekend, whoever had it loaned it. We ended up in the same apartment building — he was downstairs, I was upstairs. We hung out constantly. We built a little act at Café Cordiale on Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks, playing twice a month for six years. He was too humble to make a fool of himself onstage, and I had no problem doing that for both of us. That little band became the nucleus of the Cletones.

By the early 2000s, our Cordiale gig had become a kind of valley sensation — part middle-aged pickup joint, part musicians hang, and absolutely packed. Rumor was Jimmy Kimmel was going to get his own show after The Man Show ended. One night Jimmy came in with [executive] Lloyd Braun from ABC. We did our act — R&B, Stevie Wonder, Rufus, some bizarre Borscht Belt rock-and-roll humor. Lloyd stayed for three songs, smiled, left. Next thing we knew, we had a gig. This was late 2002.

Cleto was out with Marc Anthony at the time, and I was juggling touring with Toto and working on The Martin Short Show. But the call came: help build the show open, figure out the music. We all knew most shows aren’t built to last — three weeks and gone. But we knew we loved Jimmy, and we knew we loved Cleto. We were all in.

The early days of Kimmel were chaos. Total party. The green room was a party. The show was trying to be what late night really was in Hollywood, which, it turns out, is not sustainable. We’d get three-week, six-week, nine-week pickups. The smell of pizza at rehearsal meant celebration: We got renewed again. That was how we lived. Two years in, it started to feel like maybe we would stick around.

Cleto had zero experience as a bandleader. None. If you asked him, he’d say, “I just hired the baddest motherfuckers I know and hoped for the best.” And that’s exactly what he did. Thankfully, Toshi [Yanagi],and I had done the Martin Short Show, the Wayne Brady Show, a few pilots — we had enough TV tricks to keep the train on the tracks. And Cleto trusted us. Always. He hired people he knew knew more than he did, which made him the best kind of leader.

Watching him with his dad was something beyond words. His dad had hung up his horn to get a steady job, to raise a family. He hung up his dreams. So when he picked up that horn again — because his son was giving him the stage he deserved — it was powerful. Music did what words could never do. It was soul-to-soul transmission. All of us — me, Toshi, Junior — we’re only children. That bond with a parent is deep. The three of them had this magic triangle. When Senior played with Junior, it was like watching someone step back into the life they were meant to live.

Musically, Cleto loved groove. He loved Stevie Wonder, Rufus, Donny Hathaway, Tower of Power, Sting. He loved the truth. His playing was soulful, genuine — no math, no patterns, no cerebral showing-off. Just purpose and soul. Every note meant something.

We connected deeply on early Late Night With David Letterman — Paul Shaffer, Steve Jordan, Hiram Bullock. If you shared that OG Letterman DNA, you instantly understood each other’s humor, timing, worldview. Letterman was our connective tissue. It fast-tracked me into his life, and honestly into Jimmy’s.

As the show evolved, our music evolved. Early on we were trying to pilfer the KROQ playlist — Queens of the Stone Age, Foo Fighters — instrumental versions that kept the energy young. But as the show grew up, we leaned into what two saxophones are supposed to do. A little more classy, a little jazzier. And Cleto always trusted me to write music that featured what we did well. He gave us freedom. If I needed to miss a show to record a film score, he insisted I go. “You never know how long a show will last,” he’d say. He was never threatened. He just wanted his people to shine.

And now — now that he’s gone — it’s hard to imagine coming back without him. For decades, Toshi, Cleto, and I could communicate entire conversations with a single look. Cultural opposites, but an only-children family. One of us is missing now.

The end was brutal. He got sick, and I won’t go into details, but I’ve never seen doctors and nurses love a patient like they loved him. He knew every RN, every tech, every doctor. Even when he couldn’t communicate, they experienced Cleto through us. They felt his spirit. I’ve never seen medical professionals break down like that. It was a testament to him — his kindness, his light.

Jimmy got everything right in that monologue, except one thing: it was a BB gun, not a shotgun, shooting down kites. Cleto corrected that story eight times. But Jimmy painted the picture. Cleto was humble. He wanted respect, but hated attention. Hard place to live. Those who knew, knew. And he got his flowers.

Standing next to his dad during that monologue… I’ve never had to try that hard to be the strong one. His dad showed up in a suit, with his horn, ready to play. We played Grover Washington — the solo Cleto had air-saxophoned in his hospital bed just a week earlier. We played a song Cleto and I wrote for his mom 30 years ago. And we were going to play “Hard Times” by Ray Charles. I said to Senior: “That’s kind of your song, are you OK to play it? I thought we would play it without a sax, just as a tribute to you guys.” And his dad said, “You know, Jeff, I always hoped that he would play this when I died. This is wrong. It wasn’t supposed to go this way. But I have to play this for Junior.” And he played like I’ve never heard anyone play.

So we know this wasn’t by choice. He fought until the bitter end to stay here for his family. Last night, his his wife said, “I never wanted to do this alone.” And I said, “You couldn’t be less alone.” He spent a lifetime building friendships — deep, wide, loyal friendships. A chosen brotherhood. And I’m just so lucky I got to be his friend.