Keren Ann is at her best exploring cultural roots

Keren Ann’s music is a virtual template for the next generation of singer-songwriters. Born in Israel, with Russian, Indonesian and Dutch heritage, living in Paris and New York, she brings a rich blend of cultural seasoning to her engaging songs.

Yet her performance Tuesday at the El Rey at times seemed determined to set aside her diversity in favor of emphasizing connections with American folk rock. Playing harmonica and guitar on many of her tunes, she tended to minimize the mysteriousness that has made her CDs so compelling.

“Lay Your Head Down,” for example, from her recent “Keren Ann” album, lost the sweet calmness of the recorded version, aiming instead at urging a reluctant audience to clap along at the end of one of the phrases. And “It Ain’t No Crime,” intense even on the recorded version, was delivered with an aggressively extroverted rock sound, thoroughly reflecting her current residence in New York.

But another song inspired by the energies of Manhattan -- “Chelsea Burns” -- was both more intriguing and more characteristic of Keren Ann’s real skills. The way she captured the city’s layers of complexity was more reminiscent of the subtle emotional ambivalences of the French-language albums she recorded before she broke through to an international audience.

“Not Going Anywhere,” and “For You and I” further displayed the qualities that could position Keren Ann as an important, Norah Jones-like performer. Like Jones, she has a captivating, in-your-ear sound and a broad-based composition style reaching from folk rock and jazz to cabaret. But she also adds an approach to lyric writing filled with the sort of levels of interpretive meaning that French writer Andre Gide once described as “great density.”

To make the transition to the next level, however, Keren Ann will have to bring some of the understated drama present on her albums to her live performances.

Although she tried reaching out to the crowd between songs, talking about such unrelated subjects as the flu and the Los Angeles Marathon, and even though her musical interaction with guitarist-bassist-singer Thomas Semence and drummer Matais Fisch was solid and dependable, too often she filled more space than necessary.

But there’s no denying her potential. When she can pull listeners into the open spaces in her songs, Keren Ann will move beyond simply providing a template, and up to the full visibility that her talent deserves.