Kevin Eubanks

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**Kevin Eubanks**
Kevin Eubanks on guitar. Screencapture from The Tonight Show.
Born:	November 15, 1957 (age 49) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Occupation:	Musician
Website:	Kevin Eubanks.com

Kevin Tyrone Eubanks (born November 15, 1957 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), is an American jazz guitarist who has been the leader of the Tonight Show Band with host Jay Leno since 1995.

He played with Art Blakey, Roy Haynes, Slide Hampton, and Sam Rivers before starting to lead his own groups in 1983. Like his brother Robin Eubanks, a jazz trombonist, he has played on record with Dave Holland.

In 2005, Eubanks received an honorary doctorate degree from the Berklee College of Music, of which he is an alumnus.

He is known for his lingering, amused laughter following many of Leno's sharper jokes, and for Leno routinely poking fun at his alleged marijuana, pornography and masturbation addictions. He is also known for being a huge Philadelphia Eagles and Philadelphia 76ers fan, which is often seen when he wears hats with their logos, and on occasion Philadelphia Flyers' logo, during shows. Following the Eagles' Super Bowl loss to the Patriots, he memorably stuck his entire body into a giant tub of chunky New England clam chowder soup.

Eubanks eats no meat. He promotes such a diet as healthy. Leno commonly pokes fun at this on the show when jokes involve vegetables (such as in typos on supermarket flyers during the "Headlines" segment). Kevin joked on 12/15/06 to Tobey Maguire and Leno that he's "practicing" vegetarianism (because he eats fish).

[edit] Criticism

Many parodies on such shows as The Simpsons and MADtv have alluded to the perception that Eubanks is overly responsive to Leno's jokes. It is often alleged that Eubanks laughs at all the jokes (while Tonight Show drummer Marvin "Smitty" Smith enthusiastically smacks the bass drum), whether they're funny or not. A 1997 skit showed that the reason Eubanks regularly laughed at Leno's jokes was because a feather was tickling the bottom of his foot. In recent episodes of The Late Show with David Letterman there have been video bits cut into the show of Eubanks's famous response to Jay Leno's jokes. When shown, Letterman and band leader Paul Shaffer look at each other in shock. Also at one point in the Scrubs, main character JD can be seen going to his 'happy place' in his imagination, where he is in the shoes of Kevin Eubanks and mimicking his laughter in response to a joke by Leno. Jay Leno then looks at the camera with a confused expression.

[edit] Discography

Guitarist 1982 Wounded Bird
Sundance 1984 GRP
Opening Night 1985 GRP
Face to Face 1986 GRP
Heat of Heat 1987 GRP
Shadow Prophets 1988 GRP
Promise of Tomorrow 1990 GRP
The Searcher 1992 GRP
The Best of Kevin Eubanks 1996 GRP
Turning Point 1992 Blue Note
Spirit Talk 1993 Blue Note
Spirit Talk 2 1994 Blue Note
World Trio 1995 Intuition
Live at Bradley’s 1996 Blue Note
“Live” 2001 Insoul Music
“Shrine” 2002 Insoul Music
Angel 2003 Insoul Music
Slow Freight 2003 Insoul Music
Genesis 2003 Insoul Music
Soweto Sun 2006 Insoul Music