In 1937 he and a group of his friends skipped school to see the Benny Goodman big band that was performing at the Paramount Theater in New York City.
While helping screen actress Greta Garbo, rising movie star Marlene Dietrich came into the store demanding to speak to Statiras.
In the 1950s he moved from reselling to producing, founding Progressive Records, which released music by Cullen Offer, Zoot Sims, and Sonny Stitt.
Buck employed Statiras as a creative supervisor, developing albums with saxophonist J. R. Monterose and pianist Al Haig.
He discovered an obscure album by a stride piano player, a woman from California named Judy Carmichael who had produced it but found no distributor.
[6][5][2] In the 1980s, he ran the sub-label Statiras Records, which issued a few albums, including Jazz Piano by Judy Carmichael.