BY STEVEN ROSEN

There's something touching, if not always exciting, about musicians performing their older albums - sometimes classic, sometimes overlooked - in toto at concerts. It has a "do not go gentle into that good night" quality about it.

As album sales drop and the public increasingly responds only to individual songs experienced in scattershot manner - a radio hit here, a TV or commercial soundtrack there, a cute YouTube video in between - artists who once believed in albums (their albums) want to get out there and prove they were right. They want to lobby for their records having legacies as coherent artistic statements.

Certainly, Steely Dan - Donald Fagen and Walter Becker - hope that. In their prime, they took years between albums, painstakingly working to wed sophisticated jazz-rock arrangements to their opaquely hipster (but also often achingly romantic) lyrics. They even refused to tour, afraid their concerts wouldn't live up to their albums as statements of value. Now, they certainly don't want all that work to fade away, like 78 or 16 rpm records did earlier.

So, with a jazz-rock big band complete with three female back-up singers who can soulfully croon "Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart" to mark a stage-show transition, they've hit the road on the Rent Party '09 tour. They're doing (mostly) two-night stands in cities, spotlighting 1977's Aja one show and 1976's The Royal Scam the next. Both full-album performances are followed by greatest-hits sets. Based on their engagement at Taft Theatre in Cincinnati, Aja certainly endures as a whole. Royal Scam, not so much.

But the big surprise about Steely Dan live in 2009 is what an enormously empathic figure Fagan has become. Once considered to be as prickly and standoffish as his cryptically put-down lyrics indicated, he's aged into a professorial figure  -- white/gray hair, slightly hunched, unassumingly casual dress except for sunglasses with big, showbiz-kid-style frames. When he bows to acknowledge applause as he takes the stage, he exudes graciousness.

At the keyboard, facing the audience but head pointed upward to better sing out, he recalls Ray Charles. His voice has always been conversational, more organic than mannered and thus more nuanced than powerful, so it's impressive just how well he maintains clarity and diction through two long shows. He also stands and plays melodeon on a few songs, like "Aja" - such a pleasantly exotic sound.

Becker, looking dapper and a bit mischievously cherubic, stands front and center and serves as a kind of slightly ironic ringmaster. He parses out his guitar solos - Jon Herrington plays many of the flashy leads - and sings but one song, "Daddy Don't Live In That New York City No More." But he introduces the band and gives a droll monologue that breaks up the otherwise-too-long instrumental break in "Hey Nineteen." Mostly, he makes himself a presence.

As do the band members, bathed in brilliantly changing stage lights, as they fill out the songs with equally colorful, impeccable solos on trumpet (Michael Leonhart), trombone (Jim Pugh), sax (Walt Weiskopf), baritone sax (Roger Rosenberg), and even a drum solo or two (Keith Carlock).

Aja, which opened the first night, flows live like a suite, with the extended instrumental passages enriching the poignancy of the lyrics. The songs have just the right groove - the jazz passages from the horn section push the bluesy rock ‘n' roll underpinnings of "Black Cow," "Deacon Blues" and "Aja" forward and bring out the swaying brightness of "Peg." "Home at Last" and "I Got the News" are the lesser-known cuts, but the first provides Becker a good showcase for his slightly discordant guitar work.

On the first night, the Aja performance had the crowd enthralled and high, and everyone stayed that way during the show's remainder. But on the second night, people mostly sat through Royal Scam. It has neither the majestic sweep of Aja nor the vivid lyrics, and there's a plodding quality to some of the more blues-based numbers. It also never quite recovers from opening with its best song, the funky "Kid Charlemagne," which like a fighter fires off its quick, deft rhythmic changes and sizzling guitar solos while never losing balance, repeatedly returning to its euphoric chorus whenever it seems in danger of getting lost.

A few other Scam songs had life to them - singers Tawatha Agee, Carolyn Leonhart-Escoffery and Catherine Russell did a sexy take on "The Fez." The reggae-flavored "Haitian Divorce" also had an alluring major-minor key chorus that is a Fagan specialty. But the title number, a long one, is flat - it's all words trapped in a fancy arrangement without being a well-realized song.

Steely Dan wisely included several Aja songs in the greatest-hits segment of the second night's show, and those along with favorites like "Reelin' in the Years," "My Old School," "Black Friday" and "Dirty Work" (with the back-up singers taking the lead) left everyone standing and cheering.

Judging from the lack of Pretzel Logic songs on the playlist, as well as only a couple from Katy Lied, we might see Steely Dan hit the road doing those albums next year. If so, don't lose that number for tickets - it'll probably be a draw.