Last week, Mr. Staton sat in an easy chair in his apartment, his alto saxophone by his side and the radio tuned to the jazz station WBGO.

A widower who has outlived his siblings and several of his five children, Mr. Staton said he was born on Valentine’s Day in 1915, and grew up in a poor family with no money for music lessons and no radio in the house.

Mr. Staton’s younger sister, Dakota Staton, became a prominent jazz and blues singer. She died in 2007, at 76.

Mr. Staton said he began singing in a church gospel group and initially took up the drums but found them frustrating to deal with while his bandmates dashed off to socialize.

“I was 17 and I was girl-crazy — the other guys were out getting the girls while I’m still packing up the drums,” he recalled, adding that one day, he picked up a silver Buescher tenor saxophone that had been left behind, and began fooling around with it. “I said, ‘The heck with this,’ and I took up the sax.”

Enamored of saxophonists such as Mr. Young, Coleman Hawkins and, especially, Ben Webster, he began leading jazz combos such as the Three Tempos. During World War II, he worked as a welder in a military shipyard.

Mr. Staton always had a day job at various restaurants, even after moving to New York in 1952. The restaurant work helped support his family, but also kept him from flourishing as a jazz musician until later in life, when he retired.