Stephen Colbert has been out of the news while he plans his return to TV as the replacement for David Letterman on CBS’s The Late Show that begins on September 8. But he has been busy growing a beard and has put out a short video promotion for his show that suggests that even without the conservative mask he has been wearing for so long, he is still funny.

It is not clear how much Colbert is going to change the late night talk show format but at least in one respect, that of having an in-house band, things will be the same because he also introduces his band leader Jon Batiste and his band Stay Human.

Here is Batiste as a guest on Colbert’s former show.

(This clip aired on July 29, 2014. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Nightly Show outside the US, please see this earlier post. If the videos autoplay, please see here for a diagnosis and possible solutions.)