Jimmy Kimmel took time last night to remember Cleto Escobedo III, his childhood friend and the longtime bandleader of Jimmy Kimmel Live . After announcing the news that Escobedo had died on Tuesday afternoon, Kimmel used his monologue to pay tribute to his pal, who was 59.

“We’ve been on the air for almost 23 years and I’ve had to do some hard monologues along the way,” Kimmel told the studio audience, breaking into tears. “But this one is the hardest because late last night, early this morning, we lost someone very special who was much too young to go. And I’d like to tell you about him.”

The late-night host took the opportunity to share his memories of Escobedo. He recounted moving to a subdivision of Las Vegas in 1979 with his family. “That was where I grew up, on Meadow Lark L

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