Irving "Mouse" Randolph was an American swing jazz trumpeter.

Randolph started off playing on riverboat

Riverboat

A riverboat is a ship built boat designed for inland navigation on lakes, rivers, and artificial waterways. They are generally equipped and outfitted as work boats in one of the carrying trades, for freight or people transport, including luxury units constructed for entertainment enterprises, such...

s with Fate Marable

Fate Marable

Fate Marable was a jazz pianist and bandleader.Marable was born in Paducah, Kentucky, and learned piano from his mother. At age 17, he began playing on the steam boats plying the Mississippi River...

's ensemble. Following this he played in numerous territory band

Territory band

Territory bands were dance bands that crisscrossed specific regions of the United States from the 1920s through the 1960s. Beginning in the 1920s, the bands typically had 8 to 12 musicians. These bands typically played one-nighters, 6 or 7 nights a week at venues like VFW halls, Elks Lodges,...

s, including those of Walt Farrington, Willie Austin, Art Sims, Norman Mason, Floyd Campbell, Alphonse Trent

Alphonse Trent

Alphonse "Alphonso" Trent was an American jazz pianist and territory band leader.Trent played piano since childhood and worked in local bands in Arkansas through his youth. He led his first band in the mid-1920s, possibly as early as 1923...

, and J. Frank Terry. From 1931 to 1933 he was in Kansas City

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

, playing in Andy Kirk

Andy Kirk

Andrew Dewey Kirk was a jazz saxophonist and tubist best known as a bandleader of the "Twelve Clouds of Joy," popular during the swing era....

's Twelve Clouds of Joy, and then played briefly with Fletcher Henderson

Fletcher Henderson

James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. His was one of the most prolific black orchestras and his influence was vast...

 and Benny Carter

Benny Carter

Bennett Lester Carter was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He was a major figure in jazz from the 1930s to the 1990s, and was recognized as such by other jazz musicians who called him King...

 in 1934. From 1935 to 1939 he played in Cab Calloway

Cab Calloway

Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....

's orchestra. From 1939 to 1942 he was in the Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...

 Orchestra under the direction of Chick Webb

Chick Webb

William Henry Webb, usually known as Chick Webb was an American jazz and swing music drummer as well as a band leader.-Biography:...

. In 1943 he played with Don Redman

Don Redman

Donald Matthew Redman was an American jazz musician, arranger, bandleader and composer.Redman was announced as a member of the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame on May 6, 2009....

, and from 1944-1947 he did a stint with Edmond Hall

Edmond Hall

Edmond Hall was an American jazz clarinetist and bandleader. His father Edward Blainey Hall and mother Caroline Duhe had eight children, Priscilla , Moretta , Viola , Robert , Edmond , Clarence , Edward and Herbert .-Early life:Born in Reserve, Louisiana, about...

.

Randolph continued to play into the 1970s, including with the Chick Morrison

Chick Morrison

Charles Pacific Morrison, an American silent film actor, was born April 3, 1878 in Morrison, Colorado. The grandson of pioneer town founder George Morrison, he was known as "Chick" to many who knew him, a nickname conjunction of his first and middle names. A keen horse rider, he often appeared in...

Orchestra. He never recorded as a bandleader, though he recorded copiously with Henderson, Carter, and Calloway.