His eye for talent led him to employ musicians such as Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Glenn Miller, Jimmy McPartland, and Harry James.

[2] Pollack was born in Chicago, learned to play drums in high school and formed groups on the side, performing professionally in his teens.

[3][4] One of the earliest members of his band was Gil Rodin, a saxophonist whose business acumen served him well later as an executive for the Music Corporation of America.

From about 1928, with involvement from Irving Mills, members of Pollack's band moonlighted at Plaza-ARC and recorded a vast quantity of hot dance and jazz for their dime store labels — Banner, Perfect, Domino, Cameo, Lincoln, Romeo — under the names Mills' Merry Makers, Goody's Good Timers, Kentucky Grasshoppers, Mills' Musical Clowns, The Lumberjacks, Dixie Daises, The Caroliners, The Whoopee Makers, The Hotsy Totsy Gang, Dixie Jazz Band, and Jimmy Bracken's Toe Ticklers.

This outfit enjoyed immense success, playing for Broadway shows and winning an exclusive engagement at the Park Central Hotel.

[3] Pollack's bands from the 1920s through the 1940s included Benny Goodman, Bud Freeman, Dick Cathcart, Eddie Miller, Frank Teschemacher, Freddie Slack, Glenn Miller, Charlie Spivak, Harry James, Irving Fazola, Jack Teagarden, Jimmy McPartland, Joe Marsala, Matty Matlock, Muggsy Spanier, and Yank Lawson.

[2] In later years, after suffering a series of financial losses, Pollack grew despondent and hanged himself in his home in Palm Springs in 1971.

Pollack co-wrote the jazz standard "Tin Roof Blues" in 1923 when he was a member of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings.