Sulzmann came into the world on 30 November 1948 in London, England. Saxophones occupied his time on the blues circuit once he reached his mid-teens, yet 1964 saw him enter Bill Ashton’s original National Youth Jazz Orchestra. A subsequent engagement took him aboard the Queen Mary on its crossings to New York, after which he returned to London for study at the Royal Academy of Music. The Melody Maker New Star award followed, coinciding with appearances alongside Mike Gibbs, Graham Collier, John Dankworth, John Taylor (with whom a quartet was formed in 1970), John Warren, Clark Terry, Brian Cooper, Alan Cohen, the Clarke-Boland Big Band, Kenny Wheeler, Gordon Beck’s Gyroscope, and Gil Evans’ London band of the early 1980s. Proficiency covered soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones as well as flutes and clarinet. Among the first notable NYJO graduates, Sulzmann drew influence from Frank Zappa, Kenny Wheeler (whose works were featured on Everybody’s Song But My Own), Miles Davis, Debussy, and Delius. The all-star group convened for his 50th birthday was documented on Birthdays, Birthdays Village.
