I had problems with this also and found a solution.
I assume that almost all of you realizes immediately what this is about. So the
Short answer: Install better touch tool and define a gesture from predefined action called "send keyboard shortcut to specific application".
Long answer:
Install bettertouch tool (http://blog.boastr.net/) and open it.
Define the gesture for global. From the top you can define in which way you want to input the action. I used trackpad input, but this works almost in same way for other inputs also.
From down-right corner click "add new gesture". Choose a gesture you like under "touchpad gesture". Then choose predefined action from right and select "Send keyboard shortcut to specific application". You can leave the command field empty and just choose the application. Be sure to select the "bring app to front before.."-option.
You are done.
(5. example) I have defined four finger swipes to switch between spaces. I switch between spotify and chrome a lot. So I defined two finger swipes from left and right edges to jump to chrome and spotify. For spotify I defined also shortcut "alt+cmd+F" so it jumps directly to search field when I do the swipe.
Just realized this so I bet that other awesome actions could be done through this also. Hope this helps.