Two outstanding recent songbook albums focus on Berlin’s early songs; not coincidentally, both reference “You Keep Coming Back Like a Song.” Cabaret prodigy Maude Maggart uses it as the opening track of “Maude Maggart Sings Irving Berlin” while multi-reed wiz Dan Block quotes one of its lyrics as the title of his “From Out of the Past: Dan Block plays Izzy Baline aka Irving Berlin” (Jumpstart DB04).

Both albums juxtapose famous and obscure songs, mostly from the teens and 1920s, ethnic comedy songs (Mr. Block is to be commended for unearthing “Araby” and “Come to the Argentine”), and love songs. They also include Berlin’s signature song-songs. Mr. Block transforms “Let Me Sing and I’m Happy,” one of Al Jolson’s trademarks, into a snappy duet for alto saxophone and piano (John Sheridan). Playing clarinet, he honors Benny Goodman’s many treatments of “Russian Lullaby.”

For her part, Ms. Maggart, whose specialty is early American pop, gives us the virtually unknown verse on the neglected “Soft Lights and Sweet Music.” Her piece de resistance, however, is the 1911 “Yiddisha Nightingale.” She and accompanist Lanny Meyers could have treated the love story of Abie Cohn and his tenement Tettrazini as a Semitic novelty, like Berlin’s very funny “Cohen Owes Me Ninety-Seven Dollars.” But they take the high road and do it completely straight, emphasizing Berlin’s Hebraic harmonies, which are a minor-key antecedent to the “Russian Lullaby.”