As one half of Steely Dan with his university pal Walter Becker, Donald Fagen created some of the most impeccably crafted yet lyrically caustic music of the ‘70s. In the solo albums he went on to make, both after his band’s original split in 1981 and their reunion in 1993, Fagen met the same high standards when it came to both his distinctive fusion of rock, R&B and jazz and the arch sensibility he developed as a Beat-poetry-loving English lit student at Bard College in the late ’60s. On his first solo album, 1982’s The Nightfly, Fagen shifted away from Steely Dan’s brand of character studies to delve into the obsessions and experiences of his youth in New Jersey. And while later efforts like 2012’s Sunken Condos offered more acerbic takes on other life stages and society in general, there’s always warmth to be found in the grooves, proof of Fagen’s devotion to lifelong heroes like Ray Charles and Miles Davis.