Floyd Standifer | Member of Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame loved city

Floyd Standifer, the granddaddy of Seattle jazz and a veteran of the city's heralded Jackson Street scene and the 1960 Quincy Jones Big Band, died Monday night.

Mr. Standifer was 78.

Admitted to Virginia Mason hospital in mid-December for chronic shoulder pain, Mr. Standifer died of cancer and other complications.

"He was such an icon," said Seattle jazz musician Jay Thomas, one of Mr. Standifer's most successful protégés. "He's irreplaceable."

Mr. Standifer was born Jan. 3, 1929, in Wilmington, N.C., and moved to Portland with his family in 1936. His father was an African Methodist Episcopal Zion preacher and his mother was a schoolteacher. Mr. Standifer grew up on a farm near Gresham, Ore., with four siblings in a one-room house.

"He was the one that had to work," recalled his younger brother, James. "I used to run up the road and meet him and he'd let me drive the truck. When we grew up, we used to have a saying, 'Boy — it's long way from Gresham.' "

Mr. Standifer played drums in a Works Progress Administration band Portland in 1937, played tuba in a high school band and taught himself to play saxophone and trumpet.

In 1946, his father was transferred to a small Seattle church at 23rd and Olive, and Mr. Standifer enrolled at the University of Washington to study physics. He soon met a circle of young jazz musicians at the Madison Street YMCA that included Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, Ernestine Anderson and Buddy Catlett, and he told his father he wanted to become a professional musician.

"They argued," said James Standifer, "but Floyd stuck to his guns. Later, we used to see Dad every once in a while, in a club. When he found out they were good, we never heard any more about it. Floyd was one of the few people I know who lived a life doing what he wanted to do."

At the time, Seattle's musician unions were segregated and hard liquor by the drink was illegal. Nonwhite musicians in Local 493 were unofficially consigned by the white Local 76 to play in Central Area clubs, such as the Washington Social Club, the Black and Tan, Birdland and Sessions Playhouse.

"The weekend started on Thursday and it didn't stop until Monday morning about eight o'clock," Mr. Standifer once recalled. "[At Sessions] there was a guy name Jimmy Linegan [who] would play E-natural all night long. He kept a pistol on top of the piano ... the first thing I learned, don't ever stand next to anybody in a raid ... because you never know what'll end up in your pocket."

Mr. Standifer's style was in the "hard bop" tradition of Fats Navarro and Clifford Brown, which featured an even attack, technical facility and harmonic agility.

In 1959, Jones invited Mr. Standifer, bassist Buddy Catlett and pianist Patti Bown, all from Seattle, to join a big band in Europe.

"I was so glad when Quincy called him," said Bown. "Floyd was always an underrated musician. And he was a lovely guy. If somebody was sick or having a hard time, he would try to be there. It was almost like he was the personification of his father."

After the nine-month tour, Mr. Standifer stayed briefly in New York but opted to come home to his family. In 1962, he played the Seattle World's Fair, for which he composed a jazz liturgy, "Postlude." Mr. Standifer also worked regularly with violinist Joe Venuti and accordion player Frank Sugia in a strolling, Dickensian group sponsored by the old Frederick & Nelson department store, at Christmas.

Over the years, Mr. Standifer taught at Cornish College of the Arts, the University of Washington, Olympic College in Bremerton and the Northwest School. He played regularly at the Pampas club and with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, and was a member of the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame.

Mr. Standifer recorded two albums, "How Do You Keep the Music Playing" and "Scotch and Soda," which captured his musical excellence on vocals, sax and trumpet and his easy style with the crowd.

"Even though he was a high-level player, he never played above anybody's head," said drummer Clarence Acox, who played with Mr. Standifer at the New Orleans.

Known as a well-spoken, well-read gentleman and something of a barroom philosopher, Mr. Standifer had a great affection for the natural beauty and laid-back lifestyle of Seattle.

"Seattle always was a place to get it together," he said. "Or come off the road and reassess yourself. But you can't stay here, if you're going to make it big. ... But this town will hook you. ... The first thing you were was a human being. And it's the last thing you're ever going to be. This town allows you to do that. All that other stuff in between is just stuff that you learn to do. You're looking for someplace where life can mean something, you come here."

Mr. Standifer is survived by two children, Floyd III and Rochelle, both of Seattle, six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

Paul de Barros: 206-464-3247 or pdebarros@seattletimes.com