Jimmy Kimmel delivers 22-minute eulogy for best friend

It was a moment so powerful you had to hit pause, on the video and in life. Jimmy Kimmel remembered his best friend and talk show bandleader Cleto Escobedo III on Tuesday night.

- John Katsilometes, Tribune News Service

(Cleto Escobedo III)

Escobedodied that morning after a lengthy illness. He was 59. Escobedo was a master sax player and the architect of the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” band Cleto and the Cletones, which featured his father, Cleto Escobedo Jr., also on sax.

When Kimmel took the stage to a standing ovation, it was clear this would be no ordinary monologue. It was a 22-minute eulogy for the man who was Kimmel’s best friend since he was 9 years old and Escobedo was 10. That's when Kimmel and his family moved from Brooklyn to a tract home in the Spring Valley subdivision.

“We've been on the air for almost 23 years, and I've had to do some hard monologues along the way, but this one is the hardest,” Kimmel, his voice already wavering, said at the top. “Late last night, early this morning, we lost someone much too young to go, and I'd like to tell you about him, if you don’t mind.”