Best TV House Band

[Mojochi]

^ Speaking of that, Colbert and Jon Batiste have some of the strangest, most awkward, interactions between a host and bandleader. Bless him, Batiste seem to try his best.

I find Colbert's show very awkward & ill fitting in general, & those exchanges certainly add to that vibe. It's a shame, because I like Colbert as a person, & in the right element he's a funny comedian. That element imho is comedic actor though. As a host, it's all very uptight & antiseptic, like trying watching The Three Tenors sing Yellow Submarine. Goddamn I miss Carson now more than ever

 

[Mr. Adventure]

^ With the Coronavirus, some of the late night guys tried shows with no audience initially and then later streaming from home. I never thought Colbert to be uptight or awkward before but he did not make the transition well and is currently just putting out odd videos like changing a bike tire and not even doing anything show related. Meanwhile, Kimmel is very natural working from home and Fallon and Trevor Noah have become comfortable enough that their home shows are now airing. Colbert’s one no audience show was crazy stilted and he seemed possibly buzzed.

 

[gblews]

Regarding Leno, Branford Marsalis always looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but there. Kevin Eubanks was WAY better.

And of course who could forget Smitty the drummer.

Yeah, Branford seemed to lose interest rather quickly.

I really didn’t like Kevin Eubanks leading the band. I thought his guitar was obtrusive and never seemed to vary. I also didn’t care for his tone, which was another problem I had with him as bandleader because every time they’d go into a break, Kevin’s rather unimaginative lead lines would come swooping in over the top.

Kevin seemed like a nice guy and a decent enough musician, but I didn’t think he was cut out to lead the Tonight Show band.

 

[Owain Taggart]

On a related note, has anyone ever attended a live taping of these shows? Back in 2013, I attended a taping of Leno's Tonight show, and not being familiar with the experience, it was quite enlightening. For one thing, most of the late night shows are actually taped in the afternoon, so it's kind of surreal to be sitting in the audience and hear them go on about it being night-time. The sets are actually much smaller than what we see them as on TV, given the closeups we get. I think it's easy to take those for granted. The temperature in the studio is rather cool. They actually tell you ahead of time to wear a coat. And during taping, the role of these bands not merely serve as entertainment, but as rallying calls to make noise when coming back from a commercial break.

 

[J.T.B.]

I had to post this because I thought @gblews would like it. Letterman archivist Don Giller has posted Sly Stone's appearance on "Late Night" in 1983, including the full commercial breaks with Paul and TWMDB playing Sly and the Family Stone numbers. Sly joins on keyboard and (briefly) vocal on "Thank You Falletinme," then of course tears it up with his own performance. Some tremendous jamming going on, here. The video description notes are worth reading, too.

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[gblews]

I had to post this because I thought @gblews would like it. Letterman archivist Don Giller has posted Sly Stone's appearance on "Late Night" in 1983, including the full commercial breaks with Paul and TWMDB playing Sly and the Family Stone numbers. Sly joins on keyboard and (briefly) vocal on "Thank You Falletinme," then of course tears it up with his own performance. Some tremendous jamming going on, here. The video description notes are worth reading, too.

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Yeah, this was jammin. Don’t know if I saw it back in the day. Man, Sly sounded great, his singing AND the interview. I know he had a really bad reputation for drug use and general screwing up, but he appears to be completely in control here. But who knows, maybe things went downhill sometime after this appearance.


The rumor about Doris Day was pretty widely known, especially since she made that impromptu appearance on his bluesy, phychodelic version of Que sera sera. Might also have had to do with the rumor that she also had an affair with Dodgers player, Maury Wills in the 60’s.

If I’m not mistaken, that’s Hiram Bullock on guitar playing with WMDB, so this was early in Letterman’s run. Anyway, nice vid, JTB, thanks for posting it.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Wow, the gas prices are about the same...