Gabriela Vlahopol
The present study examines the ways in which the Baroque fugue - a paradigmatic model of contrapuntal thinking - has been incorporated, reinterpreted, and hybridized within jazz and hybrid academic/jazz composition from the mid‑twentieth century to the present. While numerous studies have addressed the general interaction between traditional academic music and jazz, the specific connection between fugue and jazz remains only partially explored, with the most consistent research concentrated in Russian musicology. This article synthesizes the principal modalities through which the fugue has been accessed by jazz and crossover composers: (1) through structural adoption, (2) through exclusive use of imitative polyphonic procedures, and (3) through combined approaches. By analyzing major scholarly contributions and representative musical works, the study proposes a conceptual clarification of the phenomenon and situates it within the broader polystylistic context characteristic of contemporary musical creation.