(Nineteenth of a series)

I’ve known Skarlet Brown longer than almost any other jazz artist featured in this section. That’s probably why it took me so long to tell her story: I was too close, knew too much, and wasn’t quite sure how to frame her wild and magnificent mess. 

In fact, my first piece on her, written in the early 2000s, had nothing to do with music at all. The magazine I worked for was running a feature on women in abusive relationships. I had met Skarlet in those days at some gig or other, and over time she shared bits of her life story with me—as women in the music scene often do over drinks and long conversations.

I interviewed her then at the newly opened Ten O2, a jazz bar on Scout Ybardolaza where she had been owner, singer, and cook. Her jazz album, “Powder Room Stories,” had just been released (Candid Records, 2007)—a 14-track CD that includes 10 original compositions and 4 renditions that speak of her voyage through life and music, and which features some of our finest jazz musicians. 

Ten O2 had been the stage for major Filipino jazz acts and bands. It had also been the rehearsal/performance venue for burgeoning groups like the AMP Big Band, of which Skarlet was vocalist at the time. It was not uncommon for her to run between kitchen and stage to sing a couple of songs—sometimes with her apron still on—because the back of house was understaffed. It was also great fun, that kind of unglamorous professionalism. 

White lie

“My road to performing jazz standards truly began by chance,” Skarlet says. “Sometime in the late ‘90s, my neo-swing band, The Brownbeat Allstars, had a gig, but some of the members got lost on the way. My manager and I were on edge because we were set to go on in just 15 minutes. A jazz trio—Prof. Jun Cadiz on keys, Freddie San Juan on bass, and Rolly Rodriguez on tenor sax—was playing at dinner before our set. To buy us some time, I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote a little white lie: ‘The hostess of the party requested that I sing a couple of songs with you.’”  She had a waiter send this to Mang Jun.

She sang “Moon River” and another standard—and ended up singing six more requests from the audience. Days later, Mang Jun invited her to visit him at the University of the Philippines College of Music where he made her list all the standards she knew. He took note of all the keys she sang these in and told her to drop in on a Friday night at Silungan, the much-loved (and now much-missed) jazz bar and restaurant in the basement of Balay Kalinaw on campus. 

“I sang two full sets—it was a jam session—and that night was my first official jazz-standards gig,” Skarlet recalls.

With Brownbeat’s career soaring, the jazz community got wind of her chops for jazz standards. She was shortly invited to jam with the JR Cobb Jazz Chamber at the original Monk’s Dream on Jupiter Street in Makati. From there, she was being booked at places like Mondo and Caramba in BGC as well as for weddings and corporate events, all while still touring with Brownbeat.

“I was gigging nonstop,” says Skarlet. “I remember showing up with bright-orange-carrot hair, a padlock choker, my 8-hole Doc Martens boots, a plaid miniskirt, and fishnet stockings. The jazz crowd was definitely weirded out by my look! But it didn’t matter. I became one of the original Monk’s Dreamgirls.”

She went on to sing for WDOUJI (Witchdoctors of Underground Jazz Improvisation), an influential Filipino jazz band in the early 2000s; Candid Records took notice and signed her up for a jazz album. This frenzy of activity eventually gave birth to Skarlet Swing Machine—a dectet with her on vocals, which paid homage to the big-band sound.

But the Skarlet Swing Machine stalled here and there, with band leader and arranger Ronald Tomas taking a cruise-ship-and-study leave at some point, and its other members pulled in for the seasonal session work. Skarlet then focused on a small jazz band with bassist Simon Tan, guitarist Aya Yuson, and drummer Koko Bermejo. When its members shifted around for abroad or other gigs, a young Rey Vinoya took over on drums (“He has since been my drummer,” Skarlet says). Then Simon got busy and Dave Harder pitched in; Aya’s schedule filled, and the late guitarist Egai “Koyang” Avenir took over. “My go-to pianists had always been Mang Jun, Joel Galang, or Henry Katindig,” she says.

From 2008 until 2012, Skarlet focused on jazz at Ten O2 (aka Skarlet Jazz Kitchen), singing for the AMP big band and AMP Nonet between 2009 and 2015. When Ronald returned, the Skarlet Swing Machine kicked back to life, gigging until the pandemic hit.

Letting go 

“The pandemic was rough, and my personal life took a hit, too,” Skarlet says. “I lost my job. I was kicked out of my house during quarantine, and after a brief reconciliation [with my ex], things fell apart for good. By 2022, I had lost everything. I was diagnosed with major depression and became a recluse for almost a year. With the help of close friends, I went through four months of therapy and slowly began to feel like myself again.”

This time around, I had a ringside seat to the unraveling. But that’s a story for another time. Early in her recovery, she threw herself into writing poetry in English and Filipino, treating it as a way into songwriting through words rather than music.

Those compositions that ended up poems Skarlet submitted to the Philippines Graphic, the longest-running printed magazine of national circulation that presents the annual Nick Joaquin Literary Awards, named after National Artist Nick Joaquin, to honor Filipino writers and literary excellence in fiction and poetry. Skarlet’s poems were given citations in 2024 and 2025.

All she wanted was to write songs and sing jazz again. Instead, she’d spent the last two years fronting rock and ska bands across the country—because those were the gigs that paid the bills. In a way, it was a return to her roots: Back in the mid-‘90s, she had been the voice of Put3ska, a band that described itself as “’60s-oriented, ‘90s Filipino ska influenced by Jamaican and British ska.” Their rendition of “Manila Girl,” with Skarlet on vocals, had become something of a national anthem, earning the group a gold record and launching her into the spotlight.

“When I joined Put3Ska and started writing songs for the band, I found myself drawn to music with a strong horn section, especially ska, big band, Latin, and ‘60s soul,” she says. Thanks to the good money she was earning from Put3Ska, she started building her jazz collection—jazz-standards albums, as well as those by Chick Webb and the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens groups, books on jazz, and musician autobiographies.

To live simply and happily is her mantra these days. To meet these goals, she needs to play at least three times a week and land one major gig a month. She seems to be getting there. “I don’t splurge on or buy things,” she says. “I reserve most of what I have for the times I’m with my daughter Maru. Being with her is my true joy.”

There’s a lightness about her these days: She’s calmer, smiles more often. Gone are the days of dragging her heart across the ground in search of a love that will live and never die—to paraphrase the lines from the evergreen jazz standard “You Don’t Know What Love Is.”

“Like jazz, the most beautiful connections are the ones that flow freely—full of authenticity, warmth, passion, and sometimes, grit,” Skarlet says. “They simply are. I’ve opened my heart to the true, real, and unconditional love that surrounds me. I’ve finally found the people who see it. I cherish them. My journey has led me to a place of healing, of true friendships, an authentic love—a love that is as real and as liberating as jazz.”

Read more: Portraits in Jazz: And in walked Chuck Joson