Donald Fagen’s solo act takes an obscure twist at Wiltern LG

The first song in Donald Fagen’s show on Monday at the Wiltern LG was a pretty good clue that this first solo tour by the Steely Dan principal would be neither a greatest-hits joyride nor an infomercial for his new solo album, “Morph the Cat,� the ostensible reason for Fagen’s tour.

It was “Here at the Western World,� a Steely Dan B-side from 1976 whose obscurity set the tone for the evening’s emphasis on less-obvious selections and whose blend of sensuality and desperation reminded everyone why the body of work Fagen and Walter Becker cooked up during the ‘70s is held in such high esteem.

With his own band and without Becker, Fagen still turned in what was essentially a modified Steely Dan set. The big-combo instrumentation was the same, the show included lots of Steely Dan songs, and Fagen’s own music is often distinguishable from Dan material only at the deepest, genetic levels.

The band aimed for the musical precision and transcendence associated with Steely Dan’s complex but catchy, jazz-informed rock, and a couple of uncharacteristic rough spots were more than compensated for by the searing, soaring soloing by guitarists Jon Herington and Wayne Krantz. Fagen, crouching over his piano with a reptilian scowl, fit his familiar nasal twang into the mix with feeling and finesse.

This meticulous musician isn’t one to do things lightly, but as the 90-plus-minute concert progressed, the song choices became more puzzling. It’s nice to hear such relatively ignored Steely Dan songs as “Home at Last� and “Third World Man� given a new airing, but with the inclusion of the languid “Black Cow,� Fagen’s 1982 slow-burn solo ballad “Maxine� and a version of jazz man Jack Teagarden’s “Mis’ry and the Blues,� the pace nearly ground to a halt.

It can be tiresome to hear fans recite their preferred set lists, but the spark and spirit in the room during the driving “Black Friday� and a stomping “Pretzel Logic� should inspire Fagen to factor in the component of musical energy when picking his tunes.

That could lead him to such equally worthy but more viscerally exciting Steely Dan songs as, say, “Kid Charlemagne,� “Deacon Blues� and “Bodhisattva,� to recite one preferred set-list segment.

And there were only two songs from Fagen’s “Morph the Cat,� which came out last week. It might not be his strongest work, but it’s his newest work, and its concerns both introspective (mortality) and social (the homeland security era) have a currency that could give a welcome new context to his wealth of old masterpieces.