FORGET your English, French, Spanish or Japanese lessons - the language of jazz is on offer at The Anvil this Wednesday.

Two of the world's top contemporary jazz musicians, saxophonist Stan Sulzmann and American pianist Marc Copland, will be performing at 7.45pm.

Affable Londoner Stan Sulzmann (pictured) is looking forward to speaking to his Basingstoke audience through the "common language of music".

Travelling and meeting different kinds of people is something he has enjoyed throughout his professional life.

"For me it all goes together, the music and the social side," says Stan.

"Music doesn't work without the people - with music you can relate to people all over the place. It's quite incredible because it's another kind of language. You are speaking to people through your music.

"I went to a tiny little town in Japan once and played with a load of Japanese musicians. There was no language communication at all - nothing. They couldn't speak any English and we couldn't speak any Japanese - but we just jammed and played the whole night, having an absolutely fantastic time and we all ended up cuddling."

Stan's career stretches back to the late '60s when, as a teenager, he played saxophone on the blues circuit.

"I used to play in a blues band at a very famous blues club called The Flamingo - with people like John Mayall and Georgie Fame. I was very young, only about 15 or 16.

"Then I worked on the Queen Mary for a year - 1967 - going backwards and forwards to New York, which, of course, if you were a jazz musician, was the place to go. That was the only way to get there then, because there were no cheap flights or anything like that."

When Stan was about 20, he decided to go to college. But he didn't go to any old college - he went to the Royal Academy of Music, studying along side John Danesborough.

Over the years, his style - often described as "instantly recognisable" - has developed.

Finding it hard to describe and to pinpoint the progress of his development, Stan says: "I've been playing for 40-odd years. It is a mixture of everything you have ever done and everything you've ever heard.

"The older saxophone players - the ones I grew up listening to from the '40s and '50s - had very strong individual sounds, but I think you should enjoy what you do yourself rather than trying always to copy something. Everybody is a mixture of something."

As Stan has got older, his music changed: "You kind of smooth things out, take your time a bit more, and do a lot of listening.

"Marc's pretty much the same. He comes from the same sort of background."

Marc Copland was a saxophone player when Stan first met him 32 years ago at Ronnie Scott's, in London.

"Marc's fantastic - very easy to work with. All kinds of musicians like to work with him, so he's very busy in New York. People like to use him because he is great in a band.

"Musically he's very supportive with a lovely sound, great timing and harmony. He's a great accompanist as well as a great soloist - that's a special skill.

"I've been talking to Marc today about what we are going to play in Basingstoke. It will probably be a mixture of original tunes and standard repertoire."

Stan says some of the tunes might come from his new album, Jigsaw, which will be released on September 27.

Like many musicians, he is keen to share his knowledge and craft to new up-and-coming musicians, helping them to find their strengths and develop them.

"I've done a lot of teaching over the years, like a lot of us do. I try to leave people alone as much as I can to get out of them what is basically 'their' sound and try to find their voice, rather than try to get everybody sounding factory produced, which is quite hard.

"It's the only way you can survive in this game - to try to be something original. There are thousands of players and you are trying to find your own little space."

Having studied at the Royal Academy as a young man, little did he know he would still be going there decades later at one of several colleges around the country where he teaches.

In fact, Stan very much enjoys balancing his musical work and teaching.

"The thing about working in a college is that you meet lots of young players, so you're always in touch with young musicians," he says.

"You get a lot of youthful energy from them - it keeps you in touch so you can move on. Music is changing all the time, as it should.

"One day you are teaching them, then a few months later you're ending up working with them.

"I know a young piano player from the Royal Academy, called Gwilym Simcock, who is absolutely unbelievable. I have just played a week at Ronnie Scott's and he was a pianist with me."