During the past couple of years, Kevin Eubanks has been seen by millions of viewers nightly as the leader of Jay Leno s Tonight Show Band, where his main purpose is to assist the comedian/host rather than play creative jazz. Eubanks comes from a musical family that included Ray and Tommy Bryant as uncles and older brother/trombonist Robin Eubanks. After studying at Berklee, he was with Art Blakey s big band (1980-1981); had stints with Roy Haynes, Slide Hampton, and Sam Rivers; and then in 1983 started leading his own groups. After debuting on Elektra, starting in 1985 Eubanks began recording regularly for GRP. Some of the sets were a bit commercial while others were fairly explorative. Switching to Blue Note in the 1990s, Eubanks has been emphasizing acoustic guitar in more recent years.