Product Code Database
Benjamin "Ben" Pollack (June 22, 1903 – June 7, 1971) (1992). 9780851125800, Guinness Publishing. ISBN 9780851125800 was an American drummer and bandleader from the mid-1920s through the swing music era. His eye for talent led him to employ musicians such as Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Glenn Miller, Jimmy McPartland, and Harry James. This ability earned him the nickname the "Father of Swing".
In 1924, he returned to Chicago, where he played for several bands, including Art Kessel's, which ultimately led to his forming a band, the 12-piece Venice Ballroom Orchestra, there in 1925, also known as ben Pollack and his Californians, which had some performances broadcast on WLW radio in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Over time the band included Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, and Jimmy McPartland. 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 Records, Perfect Records, Domino, Cameo Records, Lincoln Records, Romeo Records — 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. Combining Pollack's regular recordings with these side groups made Pollack's one of the more prolific bands of the 1920s and 1930s.
Pollack's band played in Chicago and moved to New York City in 1928, having obtained McPartland and Teagarden around that time. This outfit enjoyed immense success, playing for Broadway shows and winning an exclusive engagement at the Park Central Hotel. Pollack's band was involved in extensive recording activity at that time, using a variety of pseudonyms in the studios. The orchestra also made a Vitaphone short subject sound film.
Pollack, in the meantime, had fancied himself as more of a bandleader-singer type instead of a drummer. To this end, he signed Ray Bauduc to handle the drumming chores. The band was booked by the Park Central Hotel in New York, during which time they became known as Ben Pollack and his Park Central Orchestra. Benny Goodman and Jimmy McPartland left the band in mid-1929. They were replaced by Matty Matlock on clarinet and Jack Teagarden's brother, Charlie, on trumpet. Eddie Miller was also signed as a tenor saxophone in 1930.
Pollack formed a new band with Harry James and Irving Fazola. With James he wrote the hit "Peckin'". In the early 1940s, he organized a band led by comedian Chico Marx. He started Jewel Records, opened restaurants in Hollywood and Palm Springs, appeared as himself in the movie The Benny Goodman Story, and made a cameo in The Glenn Miller Story.
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.
Pollack left Victor in late 1929 and recorded for Hit of the Week (1930), the dime store labels (Banner Records, Cameo Records, Domino, Lincoln Records, Perfect Records, Romeo Records) (1930–1931), Victor (1933), Columbia Records (1933–1934), Brunswick, Vocalion and Variety (1936–37), and Decca Records (1937–1938).
Most of these records are listed in discographical books (such as Brian Rust's Jazz Records) as by Irving Mills. Jack Teagarden's Music lists them as a "Ben Pollack Unit".
|
|
