Irving “Mouse” Randolph

An excellent trumpeter with an unfortunate nickname, Irving Randolph was hardly ever a significant name but he was an excellent swing stylist. At the start of his profession, Randolph used Destiny Marable on riverboats and acquired stints using the place rings of Walt Farrington (1923-24), Willie Austin, Artwork Sims, Norman Mason, Floyd Campbell, Alphonse Trent and J. Frank Terry. Randolph used Andy Kirk’s Twelve Clouds of Pleasure in Kansas Town during 1931-33 and had stints using the orchestras of Fletcher Henderson and Benny Carter in 1934 before spending four years with Cab Calloway (1935-39). Randolph used the Ella Fitzgerald Orchestra (that was actually the Chick Webb ghost music group) during 1939-42, was with Don Redman in 1943 and spent many years (1944-47) with Edmond Hall’s combo. From then on period, Randolph proved helpful steadily in a number of settings in to the 1970’s (including an extended stint using the Chick Morrison Orchestra) but preserved a minimal profile. Although he documented with a lot of the aforementioned groupings (including Fletcher Henderson, Benny Carter and Cab Calloway but few significant schedules after the middle-1940’s), Irving Randolph was hardly ever given a chance to business lead his own program and was mainly forgotten by the first 1950’s.