Does Max Weinberg Want to Be Jay Leno’s New Bandleader?
After the Late Night Wars toppled Conan O’Brien from The Tonight Show and reinstalled Jay Leno in his place, it seemed as though the battle lines had been drawn: on one side, there was Team Coco, on the other, Team Leno, and never the twain should meet. That’s what makes the news we’re about to reveal all the more surprising. Sources tell Movieline that Conan O’Brien’s longtime bandleader Max Weinberg recently made overtures to Leno about joining the new Tonight Show as Leno’s bandleader. He’d be replacing Kevin Eubanks, who announced in February that he had plans to leave the show. It’s a post that Weinberg has long coveted, though he only held it briefly during O’Brien’s truncated tenure. “I think one of the biggest thrills in my life was seeing my name in the same sentence as Doc Severinsen, who, in my view, is the gold standard for Tonight Show bandleaders,” Weinberg told Inside Jersey last August after assuming the gig. “There’s never been anyone who did it quite near the class an
