JAZZ REVIEW : Amusing Notes From an Unsentimental Journey : Dave Frishberg’s Valentine’s Day audience is treated to an ace performance of songs about human foibles, all delivered in his trademark ironic style.

HUNTINGTON BEACH — With his two trusty sidekicks--wit and irony--pianist-singer-songwriter Dave Frishberg treated a full house to an ace performance on Valentine’s Day at Maxwell’s by the Sea.

Despite the romantic nature of the day, Frishberg’s topics were mainly the unpredictability of human beings--particularly their capacity for cunning and deceit--and the glory of yesteryear, especially as seen through the eyes of an adoring jazz or baseball fan.

Referring to his reluctance to write sentimental love songs, Frishberg told of receiving a call for a commission and hoping that the caller didn’t want him to write about relationships. The caller, it turned out, was CBS Sports, and the commission was “Dear Stranger.” The song was played during the introduction to CBS’ coverage of the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. “Forty million people saw it, but only a million called me,” Frishberg said jokingly.

The song, about world events from 1988 to 1992, is written as a letter to someone on Mars trying to explain such comings and goings as the Iran-Contra affair, Operation Desert Storm and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Still, there were songs of the heart in Frishberg’s 15-tune first set Sunday afternoon. He performed unaccompanied, displaying piano fills that get pithier and more ironic by the year.

“El Cajon,” with music written by Johnny Mandel, tells of being stuck in that San Diego County city after one’s love has flown, leaving “no forwarding address.”

In “Marilyn Monroe,” to music by pianist Alan Broadbent, the Frishberg lyrics go: “We shared the dream, and now we know we loved her so / She was Hollywood / She was Marilyn Monroe.”

“Dear Bix,” a paean to ‘20s jazz cornetist Bix Biederbecke, overflowed with warmth. “Zoot Walked In,” based on sax man Zoot Sims’ “Red Door,” was more straightforward: “Zoot walked in, and the band will begin to swing now.”

Later, Frishberg delivered his “Paranoid Medley,” which begins with his most popular tune, “My Attorney Bernie,” and concludes with “Wheelers and Dealers,” which he wrote in 1971.

He used to dedicate this last, about thievery in high places, to current public figures. Now, he said, the dedication goes to Oscar Wilde, who wrote that a cynic is “someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”--a line Frishberg paraphrases in this scathing attack on corruption.

Frishberg talked at length between tunes, offering insightful introductions that not only told listeners about what they were about to hear, but often made them laugh as well.

In performance, the Portland resident, who appears in Southern California about twice a year, looked at the crowd as he sang, his eyes all but ignoring the keyboard. But when he soloed or played an instrumental--it was Duke Ellington’s “Paris Blues” that first set--his eyes focused on the keys and he swayed back and forth as if the piano were his dancing partner on a fox trot.