He has started tapping when, at the age of five, he watched Fred Astaire "finesse his way across the screen of the family television set."

[3] He was first exposed to the African American style of rhythm tap when he was 17 years old and met 71-year-old Carnell Lyons.

Teachers included the jazz drummers Charlie Persip and Vernell Fournier, and the pianists Ted Rosenthal, Lee Musiker, and Phil Markovitz (music theory, arrangement).

To develop his versatility as a dancer, Pollak studied ballet (Jan Miller), jazz dance (Daniel Tinazzi, Phil Black), theater dance (Robert Tucker, Chris Chadman), and diverse tap styles with recognized masters (Savion Glover, Bob Audy, Lesley Lockery, Phil Black).

Highlights include Deutschland Lied (1989) at Sartory Theater in Köln, directed by Jürgen Flimm and choreographed by Michael Shawn.

He also appeared regularly at New York City jazz club La Cave with Dr. Jimmy Slyde, Dr. Buster Brown, Chuck Green, and Lon Chaney.

[8] The ideas behind RumbaTap began when Max took a class with Afro-Latin jazz icon Bobby Sanabria at the New School: "It changed my life," Pollak recalls.

There, he had another life-changing encounter: He met Los Muñequitos de Matanzas and one of their finest rumba dancers, Barbaro Ramos, asked Pollak to teach him to tap.

It was hailed as "... a stylistically satisfying blend of polyrhythms and percussive landscapes" and "infectiously charming ..."[10] It was officially launched at a show in 1999 at El Taller Latino Americano, featuring Bobby Sanabria, Barbaro Ramos, and Paul Carlon's Latin jazz quartet Grupo Los Santos.

RumbaTap has since toured throughout Europe, Japan, Cuba, Brazil, Turkey, Canada and the United States, in 2008 performing to a capacity crowd at New York City's Central Park Summer Stage.

[11] In 2001, Pollak received a grant from Arts International to help establish Cuba's first tap festival in Havana.