Born: November 15, 1957 Primary Instrument: Guitar
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 also a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated.
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' and Philadelphia Phillies logos, 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 claims to be vegetarian but in actuality is a pescetarian. Kevin joked on 12/15/06 to Tobey Maguire and Leno that he's “practicing” vegetarianism (because he eats fish). He does promote the vegetarian diet as healthy. Leno commonly mentions this on the show when jokes involve vegetables (such as in typos on supermarket flyers during the “Headlines” segment). On 26 June 2007, PETA selected Eubanks as the sexiest vegetarian alive. Carrie Underwood was the female counterpart.
