Kenny Wheeler, Mike Brecker, John Taylor, David Holland, Jack DeJohnette

Double, Double You is the album on which Canadian trumpeter Kenny Wheeler set four of his own compositions for a quintet of strong personalities. Recorded in New York in May 1983 and released by ECM in January 1984, it pairs his trumpet and flugelhorn with the tenor saxophone of Michael Brecker, a meeting of two very different horn players. Wheeler's writing, lyrical and harmonically open, leaves the soloists room for long and fiery flights.

The session drew on old relationships. Wheeler and bassist Dave Holland had worked together since the 1960s. Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette had been a rhythm section in Miles Davis's band and on Wheeler's earlier ECM albums Gnu High and Deer Wan. Pianist John Taylor was at the time playing with Wheeler in the trio Azimuth. The album was made at Power Station in New York, produced by Manfred Eicher with Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer.

The opening Foxy Trot runs to fourteen minutes over the most clearly defined riff on the record, carried by Holland's bass. It gives Brecker space for a long, carefully built solo. Ma Bel is a short duo for Wheeler and Taylor that sounds like an improvised conversation. In W. W. the two horns echo each other's phrases before the band rides into a medium-up swing. The original second side is filled by a 23-minute suite, Three for D'reen, Blue for Lou and Mark Time. It opens with Brecker and Taylor and leaves DeJohnette an unaccompanied passage towards its close.

Critics have tended to single out the saxophonist and the pianist. Writing in Jazz Journal in January 1985, Mark Gilbert found Wheeler's own solos elusive, but said Brecker's improvisations "have their own powerful internal logic". On ECM Reviews, Tyran Grillo later pointed to Taylor, "whose sweeping pianism tempers the trumpeter's fire just enough", and considered the album nearly flawless apart from the brief Ma Bel. Gilbert also heard in Brecker's Foxy Trot solo an echo of his playing on Pat Metheny's 80/81, an earlier ECM session. His verdict was that Wheeler's admirers would want the record anyway while newcomers might come to it for Brecker.

This CD is the 2019 reissue in ECM's Touchstones series, which brings key albums from the catalogue back into print in card sleeves. Double, Double You was first released in 1984 as ECM 1262.