Cleto Escobedo III, a saxophonist whose childhood friendship with comedian Jimmy Kimmel led to a decades-long role as the leader of the house band on Kimmel’s late night show, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” died today. He was 59.

Kimmel announced the death on Instagram. He did not cite a cause or say where Escobedo had died.

Escobedo’s band, Cleto and the Cletones, has been with “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” since the show’s inception in 2003, but his association with Kimmel dated to their time growing up together in Las Vegas.

“Cleto and I have been inseparable since I was 9 years old,” Kimmel wrote on Instagram. “The fact that we got to work together every day is a dream neither of us could ever have imagined would come true.”

In a 2013 interview with Variety, Kimmel recalled that Escobedo was a “music

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