Wednesday, April 14, 2010

OF COURSE: When Jay Leno started his show, Branford Marsalis, a charismatic, well-respected jazz musician, was his bandleader. When Branford Marsalis retired, he was replaced by Kevin Eubanks, a bland personality whose musical repute I don't know. Now that Eubanks is escaping his gilded cage, American Idol's Rickey Minor is taking over the Leno band and the straight-man chit-chat stool. I think this is just about the most perfect pairing Hollywood has ever made. Rickey Minor has never met a musical piece that he didn't want to neuter and dress up with tinkly keyboards. Rickey Minor makes jazz music for people who hate sex -- in other words, Jay Leno's audience. He will inoffensively play Jay on and out, and he will laugh easily, not without a hint of confusion, at Jay's non-joke declamations. For a show whose chief goal is not to challenge anybody, there can be no better choice, short of Kenny G., than Rickey Minor. Meanwhile, over at Fox's crown jewel, this is an opportunity to put together a band comprised of musicians who listen in their off time to popular music of the last quarter-century.
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7 comments:

  1. Russ11:14 AM

    "Rickey Minor makes jazz music for people who hate sex -- in other words, Jay Leno's audience.":  LOL.

    At the beginning of Jay's run, I watched for Branford, who was great with Sting in the Blue Turtles days and cracked me up in the "Bring on the Night" movie.  I don't know Minor, but sounds like he is indeed appropriate.

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  2. Carmichael Harold11:47 AM

    I agree with Russ, that line is awesome.  The reminder that Branford Marsalis predated Eubanks, made me suddenly worried that Fallon is going to end up replacing the Roots with Nate Dogg and, then, eventually, Vanilla Ice.

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  3. lisased12:58 PM

    The Blue Turtles tour was my first concert. Listening to Sting sing "Roxanne" accompanied only by Branford Marsalis was amazing.

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  4. spacewoman1:52 PM

    I love it when you write something that makes me laugh without simultaneously making me worry that somebody is going to sue us.

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  5. KJ2:26 PM

    If they hired some members of the Rock Star house band, I would most definitely start watching AI.

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  6. Fred App2:34 PM

    That's the second-meanest dig at Jay Leno I've heard this week. The first was on SNL, when Tina Fey was rattling off a bunch of made-up shows on the Sarah Palin Network ("Tea Party Wheel of Fortune," "Are You Smarter than a Half-Term Governor") and threw in deadpan, "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

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  7. Scott2:51 PM

    House Band is the still, in my opinion, the best backing band on any television show, ever.

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