The two-layer square lattice quantum antiferromagnet with spins 1/2 shows a
zero-field magnetic order-disorder transition at a critical ratio of the i
nter-plane to intra-plane couplings. Adding a uniform magnetic field tunes
the system to canted antiferromagnetism and eventually to a fully polarized
state; similar behavior occurs for ferromagnetic intra-plane coupling. Bas
ed on a bond operator spin representation, we propose an approximate ground
state wavefunction which consistently covers all phases by means of a unit
ary transformation. The excitations can be efficiently described as indepen
dent bosons; in the antiferromagnetic phase these reduce to the well-known
spin waves, whereas they describe gapped spin-1 excitations in the singlet
phase. We compute the spectra of these excitations as well as the magnetiza
tions throughout the whole phase diagram.