He played tenor saxophone and trumpet, sang, and was bandleader of the Floyd Standifer Quartet.
[1] In 1946, when his father was transferred to a church in Seattle, Standifer enrolled at the University of Washington to study physics.
[1] In 1959, he joined a big band tour of Europe, organized by Jones and featuring Catlett and pianist Patti Bown, also from Seattle.
He taught at Cornish College of the Arts, the University of Washington, Olympic College in Bremerton, the Northwest School as well as teaching jazz history at the summer jazz program at the Saskatchewan Summer School of the Arts in Fort San, Saskatchewan in the early 1980s.
[1] He also spoke to and performed for thousands of local students as part of Earshot's "Roots of Jazz" series.