The Traveling Janes

Before the Traveling Janes played their first note, one word was already in the air. Around 1900 in America, a Traveling Jane was a woman who worked on the railroad or in Vaudeville tent shows and moved from place to place. In 2023, the Scottish-American singer Ali Affleck founded an international women’s ensemble in London and adopted this slang term as the name—confidently and with a wink.

The music comes from the same era. Ragtime, early American pop songs, blues and traditional jazz form the core—songs that won over audiences for Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith and were popularized by Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Sidney Bechet. The Janes are not out to produce a pastiche. They sweep away the Gatsby gloss and play these pieces rough, funny and cheeky, just as they had to work in travelling tents.

The line-up is fluid. Katie Cavera from the USA plays banjo and guitar. Amanda Lee from Singapore is often at the piano, Danielle Price on tuba, and French musician Aurélie Tropez on clarinet and saxophone. At JazzAscona 2026, Emily Asher joined on trombone. Affleck herself sings, plays washboard and percussion, and guides the programme with wit.

The sound thrives on this blend. Tuba and banjo supply the buoyant two-beat pulse of the 1920s, the piano fills in with ragtime figures, and the clarinet weaves around the vocal line. Affleck’s singing carries the blues repertoire of the great female singers as well as the playful novelty numbers of the era.

A second project grew out of their work on early American repertoire. The musicians discovered connections between North America, the Celtic countries and England, and at the Edinburgh Tradfest they presented old folk songs from the USA, Canada and the British Isles, with Gill Hunter on accordion and Hannah-Rose Dexter on double bass.

They performed an early concert at the London bar Nightjar with Enrico Tomasso as guest trumpeter. Since then, the Traveling Janes have been playing in clubs and at festivals between Shetland, Glasgow and Ticino. Their program tells a story of jazz in which the women of the touring stages play the leading roles.