After I released my jazz quintet album Third Week of April in 2009, I thought I would probably never try to make another “jazz” album. I had a few more songs written, but not enough for a full album. And after I moved to Los Angeles, I was more interested in being a side musician than band leader anyway. But in summer 2025, I got to play with a new group of incredibly talented musicians, and they inspired me to get the Lullabies project together.

Instead of trying to write enough songs for a full length album, I wanted to focus on what I heard a podcast host say years ago: “You have to make the thing you wish existed in the the world.” And right now, that thing is music to calm my anxiety.

In 2020, some New York friends released a kind of free-improv meditation track, and during the height of the Covid pandemic, it felt more calming to me than Xanax. Playing with this group of musicians has had the same effect on me. I’ve never been good at meditation, but the awareness required to play improv-based music is probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to actually clearing my mind. In that spirit, I hope at least one of these songs can do the same for someone else.

~Lelah Simon, Los Angeles, November, 2025