A big clue to understanding this band lies in the fact that Bob Crosby isn’t on the box set’s cover. It’s the first artist-centered Mosaic set I’ve seen where the named talent isn’t pictured, and there’s an excellent reason. Bob Crosby was taken on only as the nominal leader of this group. He couldn’t read music, couldn’t wield a baton, and couldn’t sing as well as his brother Bing. But he was a radio performer with an easygoing stage presence, and the band members figured he wouldn’t get in their way. They were right. Incredibly, most remained happy with this arrangement.
The well-known backstory bears repeating due to its comic improbability. Ben Pollack led a hugely successful band through the 1920s, launching the careers of players like Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller. In the early 1930s, Pollack fell in love, and his inamorata was a second-string singer named Doris Robbins. He wanted her name to become famous. It did, but only in the context of this story.
His band members resented the attention he gave her and the awful performances she perpetrated, and late in 1934 they staged a mass walkout. They were dubbed “Pollack’s Orphans” in the music press. Many of them moved to Jackson Heights in Queens, to a building where they were able to commandeer the basement as a rehearsal space. They styled themselves as a coöperative and elected reedman Gil Rodi
