Dominique Fils-Aimé at Dakota Jazz Club (Sep 14, 2025)

Tour Dates

Sept 14 Minneapolis, MN @ Dakota
Sept 16 Los Angeles, CA @ Blue Note
Sept 18 San Francisco, CA @ SF Jazz
Sept 19 San Francisco, CA @ SF Jazz
Sept 20 Napa, CA @ Blue Note
Sept 23 Seattle, WA @ Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley
Sept 24 Seattle, WA @ Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley
Sept 25 Portland, OR @Jack London Revue
Sept 27 Monterey, CA @ Monterey Jazz Festival
Sept 28 Phoenix, AZ @ Musical Instrument Museum
Oct 1 Santa Fe, NM @ Lensic Performing Arts Center

When we saw Dominique Fils-Aimé at the Dakota Jazz Club in August of last year, we noted at the end of the review: “This was her first Dakota Jazz Club appearance, and based on the turnout, it probably won’t be her last.”

The prediction rang true on Sunday night as she returned to put on another show in front of a full and welcoming crowd.

Dominique is from Canada and a daughter of Haitian Immigrants. She has been performing for about ten years, introducing herself to a broader audience when she competed on Quebec’s version of The Voice aka La Voix in 2015. From there she has released four albums, two of them winning the Canadian Juno Award for Vocal Jazz Album of the Year, they being Stay Tuned from 2019 and Our Roots Run Deep in 2023. She also released her first live album this year, Live at the Montreal International Jazz Festival.

As she took the stage with her band, she did something unusual but made perfect sense. She introduced her band, saying, “You wouldn’t go to a party and introduce people at the end of the evening.” She also asked the audience to refrain from clapping after every song. The reason was to create a flow and to help her and the band keep in the musical moment. Finally, she said that she would mostly perform with her eyes closed, which I imagined helped her stay in the moment.

From there was an evening not so much of songs to sing, but moments of life that flowed into each other. Sometimes the musical moments were separated by brief poems recited by Dominique. Other times there were solos from members of the band. Many of these moments involved simple phrases like “I’m all over you” and “Let love take over” in which Dominique would sample her voice and sing over recorded iterations. And with the band dialed in there were times a five-piece band sounded like a symphony, the crescendo requiring applause for which Dominique quietly smiled and nodded for the audience’s need to acknowledge the moment.

Before Dominique moved to the encore, she asked the audience to do a few things after the show. One was to love one another. The other was to create, for making art should not only reside in the domain of artists like herself. And finally, to dance and sing. She said sing and dance in the streets. And if someone says your singing isn’t in tune, just reply, “I’m jazz.”

Fun Fact: All the awards that Dominique has won over the years, she has given to her mother, who is a doctor. As she told Rollingstone Québec, “They’re on her mantel. She’s really proud. It warms my heart to give her that. These awards helped ease her worries when I chose music.”