THE SECOND COUP Modern jazz often lacks in charm and airiness. This diagnosis doesn't fit the music of the Oli Kuster Kombo - it oscillates in a pleasurable and diverting way between elegant loveliness and dodgy crankiness and even allows a couple of strange embellishments. Kuster consistently follows his own way as a pianist and band leader, neither overdoing the respect for tradition nor letting himself be distracted by trends or fashions. Kuster's compositions which often have enigmatic titles are inventive in an effortless way: You can hear that they are the result of a long internal ripening during which there can easily occur spontaneous flashes of wit. Kuster doesn't copy the work of unorthodox heretics like Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, Geri Allen or Michelle Rosewoman, he mainly reflects it and draws his own conclusions from it. After "Oerlikon" follows now with "Flokati" the second coup of the Oli Kuster Kombo. Again all the compositions were penned by the band leader. Yet Kuster doesn't act as a dictatorial director at all, but sees to it, as a democratically minded primus inter pares, that the musical ideas can circulate unobstructedly between all involved, yet always observing the form. Like Kuster, clarinet player Jürg Bucher, bassist Lorenz Beyeler and drummer Dominic Egli love the minutest details without losing the feeling for the longer progress of suspense.